How To Train Your Avengers
by Check it bonsly
Summary: Hiccup specifically warned the twins not to get too close to the swirling expanse in the sky. He warned them, but they didn't listen, and now they're all stuck in the strange world of grey towers and strange, brightly coloured things. The portal closed, and the only man who can open it again just went off the deep end. Well, you can't say his life's dull.
1. And Now We've Got a New Problem

**A/n: this is a continuation of chapter 50 of Dragons: Oneshots of Berk. It's been edited quite heavily since then, so it's hopefully a bit better now. This follows Avengers canon up to Avengers Assemble, and HTTYD canon up to HTTYD 2, with a few of the things mentioned in D:OoB mixed in. If you haven't read it, you probably don't have to, but some things might make a bit more sense.**

* * *

Tony's eyes widened as he caught his first first-hand glimpse of space. In any other circumstance, it would've been beautiful. Unfortunately, the effect was rather ruined by the lack of proper equipment. The suit wasn't built to cope with extreme conditions like this in the best of times, and Tony didn't _want _to know how badly it would perform, with all the fluctuations in the power kept on making the warning screens flicker. It wasn't long before the lights from the screen dimmed altogether - far too slow for Tony's liking; now, the last thing he ever saw would be the failure to connect with Pepper.

He didn't think anything, not consciously, just let his eyes drift shut as he embraced the darkness threatening to engulf him. Just before his eyes shut completely, the scene changed. He hadn't thought that death would be brought along by a view of the ocean, but it was a welcome reprieve from the never-ending darkness of space.

* * *

Astrid smiled slightly as she noticed Eret's expression. Though Ruffnut had mostly got over her massive crush on him, she still managed to freak him out with her lack of personal boundaries. This was one such occasion, where Skullcrusher had to send a warning shot at Barf and Belch to get them to back off. Eret noticed her amusement and scowled at her, only serving to further Astrid's amusement.

"Something funny?" Hiccup asked, looking between the two. Concentrated as ever on his flying companion, Hiccup had managed to almost entirely miss the exchange between the two riders.

"No." Eret said, at the same time Astrid offered the opposite answer. He glared at her again. "Just Ruffnut flying a bit close."

Hiccup smiled at that, understanding what he'd seen. "I'll tell her to back off. Again..." he said irritably, turning to the twins to give another stern warning that the duo would surely ignore.

"Ruffnut?" he called. She didn't respond. "Ruffnut!"

"What's that?" she said curiously, completely ignoring Hiccup's call. The others followed her gaze, seeing a slight ripple in the otherwise quite normal sky.

"Stay away from it - or at least approach slowly," Hiccup cautioned, "I've seen it before; it's the portal... thingy."

"It'll send us to another world? _Cool!" _the twins enthused. Figures that they'd remember _that _part of the recount of his prior experience with random swirls in the sky. They didn't heed Hiccup's warning and flew straight up to the ripple.

Hiccup sighed. "Do they _ever _listen?" he asked rhetorically, nudging Toothless to get him to move forwards. He didn't budge at first, still eyeing the strange patch of sky suspiciously. _The dragons are nervous. Great; that can only ever mean bad things..._

Eventually though, Toothless complied, leading the others up at a much slower pace and stopping the moment he came level with the twins.

"Okay, let's stay here..." Hiccup advised. "If we just watch it, we'll have an idea of what's going on."

They sat in silence for a while, watching the swirl grow. As it got bigger, the area it encompassed started to darken, making it look as though there was a small patch of night in the middle of the midday sky. For a second it shrank back, before exploding outwards to cover the riders.

"What a surprise; we're going in." Hiccup said sarcastically, eye-roll almost palpable. There wasn't time to say anything else, as the vortex pulled them in, and they found themselves falling.

* * *

The next thing Tony was aware of was that the Hulk could be very loud. _Very _loud.

He jerked awake at the yell from the Other Guy, and the second thing he was aware of was pain. Not too much; just enough to remind him that yes, he was still alive. Yippee.

"Please tell me nobody kissed me," he said breathlessly. From the tired chuckles he received, he knew it was the right thing to say.

"You know," he continued, tone light and conversational, "I saw a shawarma joint a couple blocks away. Never had shawarma before. Maybe we should get some."

That was an even better thing to say; Cap was rolling his eyes at him now. Stark one, dreadful situation nil.

They sat in silence for a while, basking in the fact that they were all still alive. Tony especially was grateful for that, having taken a slightly unexpected trip to space. And, if the random flashback to blue skies and sunshine was anything to go by, he really had come close to...

No, he wasn't going to think about that one - plenty of time for that over the sleepless nights that were sure to follow.

Just as Tony was starting to relax back into blissful thoughtlessness - as close as he could come, anyway; he was actually running through new inventions and suit designs _(g__otta have a space suit, not repeating that experience), _but at least he wasn't thinking about _that _- a voice that had become far too familiar over the past few hours basted through the comms.

_"It's not over yet." _Nick Fury deadpanned. Tony could imagine him now, all frowny and official while he kept turning like an idiot to see both the screens in front of him. He needed to do something about that, actually. If he was going to be working for SHIELD now, he didn't want to work for someone who turned like an idiot. _Maybe the motion sensors for the holographic screens can be reprogrammed to - wait, still got things to deal with here._

"Uhh... wrong?" Tony said sarcastically. "We won, the bad guys all got exploded... I think the others mysteriously died? Gotta love them hive minds."

_"And now we have a _new _problem." _Fury corrected by way of comeback. Tony scowled; he was going to win in a snark-off with that man some day.

"What is it?" Steve asked, in full Captain America mode and just as serious as the boss man in the sky.

_"I don't know, but they're about a hundred feet above you."_

"They?" Tony echoed. The comm link cut off. _Rude._

* * *

About a hundred feet in the air, Hiccup was complaining about his bad luck. He was also falling uncontrollably, but that kind of thing tended not to bother him as much as it probably should, given his track record for it happening.

"We'll have to find the portal again, but it looks like it just sealed off." he said, looking up at where they'd appeared from. They'd come out of the portal just as it closed, in fact, falling much slower than the strange creature that came before them. The red and gold object had landed some time ago, actually; he didn't have the advantage of wings to slow himself down.

"This isn't the time!" Astrid yelled, reminding Hiccup that his first priority should probably be a safe landing.

"Yeah, sorry..." he said. "Alright. Is everyone okay?" he checked. Everyone gave a confirmation - Hiccup ignored Snotlout's shrieks about how he was about to die - and he mentally checked off the first step of his hastily made plan. "Right. Let's get to the ground - slowly though, and I _mean _slowly," He glared at the twins. "then we can work out what's going on."

After a short glide down to ground level, Hiccup was surprised to find what was quite clearly the aftermath of a battle of some sorts. There were only a few people stood in the middle of the smouldering remains of the strange grey buildings, none of whom looked that bothered to be there, and certainly weren't making any effort to stop the dust settling on them.

Well, _people _was a loose term.

There was a green creature, who was normal if you discounted his greenness and his bulging muscles - they looked like they'd rival even a Viking's. The red and gold creature from before was still there, and its face had opened to reveal a normal looking human's face, possibly meaning that a man was trapped inside (or was it intentional - some strange armour, the type Johan sometimes spoke of?). Speaking of normal humans, a man dressed in red and blue stood next to the green man, holding one hand to his ear while the other gripped a circular shield - good to know that one of them had a good taste in weaponry, at least - and beside him was...

"Thor..." Hiccup whispered.

* * *

"Dragons?" Tony said incredulously. He shifted his head, trying not to wince at the pain such a simple action caused, to check if the others were seeing the same thing. Well, Capsicle certainly was. Thor, on the other hand, looked... amused?

"Vikings!" the god said. He sounded inordinately pleased at this fact, even more so than when he spoke of 'petty' and 'puny' humans. His smile was almost one of endearment.

Vikings. Well, the dragons made more sense now. Wait - Thor was a Norse god, these were Vikings...

"Ha!" Tony laughed. This was just too rich. "Cap, they're meeting _god!"_

* * *

The man in red and gold said something - Hiccup wasn't surprised that he didn't understand it - that the dragon riders ignored. _Thor _was there. And he looked pleased to see them. _Thor. _Pleased to see _them._

"Thor?" Hiccup said, trying not to sound too nervous. Behind him, the other riders had noticed the god, and were having mixed reactions. The general consensus seemed to be that this was an appropriate time to faint; Astrid was the only one still awake, and it looked like she would soon be following her friends into oblivion.

"Yes?"

And oh dear gods he was just as amazing as people said.

"You're Thor." Hiccup said dumbly. Thor smiled again. "Actual... god... Thor."

That was enough for the Viking. He slumped over, completely dead to the world.

* * *

The scrawny one on the black dragon said something that Tony didn't understand - he was _so _going to have to learn Norse - and promptly collapsed. Tony found he couldn't really blame him; he'd just met one of his actual gods, after all. The other Vikings had all met the same fate, and their dragons had assumed defensive stances in front of them.

"Hey, Point Break," Tony caught Thor's attention, "What was the little dude saying?"

"He reminded me of my name." Thor grinned. Tony couldn't help but chuckle at that, painful as laughter was.

"So, no names?" Steve checked, once again a downer. "No explanations?"

"No!" Thor seemed positively jovial, as usual. Perhaps he was making up for Captain Stick-In-His-Ass. "The dragons could tell me though."

Lucky gods and their all-speak.

_"What's going on down there?" _Fury all but shouted into the comms.

"We've found some Vikings." _Vikings. _Amazing! "What should we do with them?"

_"Bring them to your tower, Stark. I'll come to you."_

Another click sounded, and the Avengers were on their own.

"Okay, this, and _then _we get shawarma?"

* * *

After regrouping with Hawkeye and Widow, scaring Loki a bit and letting the SHIELD goons cart him off to locations unknown, the Avengers finally had a chance to tend to their Norse guests. A quick translation program installed in JARVIS and a few beds pushed into one room were all it took to prepare for the small group. The dragons were happy to follow and stayed calm after Thor had a quick chat with them, and now all there was to do was wait.

They weren't there for long before the little dude - the black dragon had been calling him 'Hiccup', of all things - started to stir. He woke up easily, and soon calmed down after he scanned his surroundings a bit.

_"Where am I?"_

JARVIS gave a quick translation that made the Viking jump, and Steve answered: "Stark Tower. It's a safe place," he added quickly, pointing at Tony, "he owns it."

_"Oh." _Was all the young man could come up with after JARVIS translated for him.

"Who are you?" Steve took the lead instead.

_"Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third." _the Viking said, with a slight smile, _"Bad names are supposed to protect us from evil spirits." _he explained.

_"These guys are Astrid, Eret, Snotlout, and Ruffnut and Tuffnut." _Hiccup continued. Tony noticed the way he grouped two of the names together - twins, perhaps? - _"And... where's Toothless?"_

"Toothless?" Steve frowned. "There weren't any other people there..."

_"No, he's a dragon." _Hiccup explained, _"And my best friend."_

Best friends with a dragon? Damn, Tony wasn't sure whether he should feel jealous of or sorry for the guy.

"They're in the other room, with Thor." Steve explained calmly. Hiccup visibly relaxed at that, though he still looked a bit tense. Nothing a quick drink couldn't solve... now to work out what Vikings even drank...

"Are the Vikings awake yet?" Black Widow asked, popping her head round the door. She frowned slightly toward the ceiling as JARVIS started translating her speech. _She doesn't speak Norse? Ha, point to me... once I learn it..._ "Fury's here; he wants to speak with someone."

"You up for it, kid?" Steve checked.

Hiccup scoffed. _"I can talk; I'm not the chief for nothing."_

_Chief? _Tony thought, giving the SCRAWNY Viking an appraising look. _Doesn't look like one._

* * *

Steve stayed in the other room to wait for the others to wake up, while Tony took Hiccup through to talk to Fury. He soon saw the chief in the boy; he wasn't intimidated by Fury's commanding speech or posture - in fact, he looked quite used to being around people much strongER than the director.

"I am Nick Fury, director of the Strategic Homeland -"

_"That's great and all, but I'm more interested in your plans," _Hiccup said impatiently. _"Do you have dragons here, or am I going to have to demonstrate?"_

"A demonstration would be ideal." Fury snapped. Tony sniggered, revelling in the knowledge that Hiccup had managed to make the unflappable director feel put out. _You're doing great, kid._

_Team Stark one, Fury nil. _Tony mentally adopted the Viking.

_"Okay. Toothless?"_

Tony stopped laughing - it wasn't because Fury was glaring at him, honest! - and paid more attention to the black dragon walking over to Hiccup. He was the smallest of the group, but by no means the least threatening. Part of his wing was a different colour to the rest, a bright red made of a clearly different fabric. What had caused that?

_"What do you want to know?" _Hiccup asked politely.

"Are they dangerous?" Fury asked, subtle as ever as he glared at the dragon in obvious mistrust. Toothless glared right back, baring his fangs to the man. _I thought he'd be... well... Toothless._

_"Of course," _Hiccup said, _"But they're good; they won't harm you unless you harm them. Or me; they're fiercely protective."_

Fury nodded. Tony used his momentary pause to jump in with a question of his own: "So they fly? And breathe fire?"

Hiccup laughed. He turned and said something to the dragon, which JARVIS didn't translate.

"Not telling us that bit, J?" Tony asked, frowning up at the ceiling.

"That was not a language in my database, sir." Jarvis explained.

_"Oh, sorry. That was Dragonese." _Hiccup explained. _"I was warning Toothless not to demonstrate that just yet. But yes, he can fly and shoot plasma blasts."_

"Cool!" Tony grinned. _Dragonese... gonna have to learn that, too._ "Can I try?"

Hiccup answered by walking over to Toothless and hopping on. The dragon padded over to Tony, and Hiccup extended an arm out. _"Hop on." _he invited.

Tony, giddy with childish excitement, grabbed Hiccup's hand and practically jumped onto Toothless's back, injuries and tiredness be damned. Clint rolled his eyes at the show of maturity.

"Shut up. You're just jealous you didn't ask first, Legolas."

Clint muttered something obscene about where Tony could shove his statement, which JARVIS didn't translate. Tony laughed and blew a very mature raspberry. Hiccup laughed at the exchange and had one of his own with his dragon, patting it slightly on the head and saying something else in the strange, growling language that was Dragonese. Honestly, it sounded like a mix of clearing his throat and particularly painful coughing fit when it came from a human. _Maybe I won't learn it... _The dragon understood though, and sprang forwards in response, diving straight out of the building.

"A little warning next time!" he yelled. Hiccup laughed at the response, saying something in Norse that was once again not understood, now that they were out of reach of the tower. He needed to find a way of getting JARVIS outside the tower without the suit. It was a good thing that most of the glass had shattered during the battle, Tony realised, as neither dragon nor Viking appeared to have even considered to check the windows. _Maybe they don't have glass? _Tony shuddered at the thought of such a primitive lack of technology.

Speaking of technology, Tony found himself more interested in the gear system by Hiccup's feet than the actual sensation of flight - it _was _an amazing feeling, and _dragons, _but... _technology -_ which looked quite advanced for a civilisation that had yet to discover glass.

"You make that?" he asked, pointing at the contraption. As he did. he realised for the first time that one of the Viking's legs was missing - how he'd missed that, he'd never know.

Hiccup followed Tony's gaze and nodded, guessing what he was asking. He opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it.

They continued in that silence for a while - what were you supposed to say to a guy you couldn't understand, anyway? - as Hiccup guided them around the ruins of New York. _Wow, we really wrecked the place, _Tony realised, looking down at the collapsed buildings and small fires dotting the ground. Hiccup seemed to realise the place for what it was - the aftermath of a warzone - but that didn't stop him from using it as his personal playground. He dodged the skyscrapers, flew between dangerously narrow gaps in bits of rubble, and laughed at Tony's screams - manly screams, of course - as he did.

Just as they were about to pull into yet another loop-de-loop, a slight buzz in his ear reminded him of the comms unit he'd had forced onto him back at the helicarrier before the battle. He had no idea why, really; JARVIS had a perfectly safe frequency for everyone to go onto, but _no, _SHIELD had to be super-special with their super-secret communication and super-unique earpieces. He sighed slightly as he realised why it was back online, and Hiccup slowed down accordingly.

_"Get your ass back here Stark."_ Fury demanded. "_Put your little friend on here and get that computer of yours to tell him what's happening."_

"He's not a computer." Tony corrected impulsively. "He's an AI, or more -"

_"I don't care if he's a talking _monkey_; get back here _now_."_

"Fine." Tony sighed. He couldn't help but add a quiet "Popeye."

_"What did you call me?"_

"Nothing!"

* * *

**So, there it is. I'd appreciate (read: I live for) reviews and feedback, so if you could take the time to do that. Though, this probably won't get much, 'cause there's only like three other fanfics n this section. Maybe I'll move it to just Avengers...**


	2. A Team Bonding Exercise

**A/n: first off: what a turn-out! By which I mean like a hundred people, but six reviews, which is _awesome. _(Also: check my Megamind quote there oh yeah.)**

**There's something I forgot to mention last chapter, which I'm pretty sure you've probably worked out already but just in case: _"This is speech in a different language (depends on the person the focus is on).", _"This is speech in that person's own language." and _'This is Dragonese.'_**

* * *

After Fury finished gracing Tony's ears with his presence, the challenge of getting Hiccup to understand that they needed to go back to the tower arose.

"We need to go back," Tony said uselessly, pointing back in the direction of the tower. He might not be understood by the Viking, but it sure felt like he was actually getting somewhere. Hiccup looked at him, looked at Toothless, and said something in Dragonese. (Tony considered it good progress that he was able to tell the difference already.)

Hiccup must've been able to tell what the hand actions meant, or possibly he was a mind reader, because Toothless sped straight back and landed neatly, exactly where they'd taken off from.

"I think we've gathered that dragons aren't dangerous." Fury said as Tony hopped off Toothless.

"Yeah, did you see that?" Tony asked giddily, gesturing back to the dragon, "We were all, nyoom!, and then the buildings were all, crash!"

"Stop acting like a three-year-old." Fury requested snappily. "Anything else to add to your oh-so-eloquent response?"

_Oh, yeah, I'm an adult. Not supposed to be all giddy about dragons. But still... _"Come on! It's a _dragon. _What do you _think _it can do?" Fury raised an eyebrow. "Fine..." Tony pouted. Damn Fury and his eyebrow-speak. "It flies, shoots these wicked fireball things, it has a language..."

_"He." _Hiccup corrected. Tony looked back at him in surprise; he'd forgotten that JARVIS was translating what he said now.

"He, sorry."

Tony scanned the room. The other dragons had gone - to a different floor? Maybe - and the rest of the Avengers had followed. It was just him and Fury. Great.

_"So, what now?" _Well, him, Fury, and Hiccup. And Toothless. _"Got any magic plan to get us back home?"_

"No." Fury admitted. He didn't sound too sorry about it, either. "We don't even know how you got through; the portal was only supposed to open at two ends. I was hoping you could shed some light on the matter?"

Hiccup rolled his eyes, correctly translating Fury's 'polite' suggestion into "tell us no or there'll be consequences". _"There was a portal, we were looking at it - from a _safe distance -" the way he said that made it sound as though someone had ruined the 'safe distance' part of the plan, _"when it suddenly exploded outwards. Next thing I know, we're all falling with the red and gold thing, and we're here... wherever _here _is."_

"New York." Tony supplied. "And this is Stark Tower. More like 'A' tower, right now," he said sadly, thinking of the destruction of what was 88 - an argument could still be made for 85 - percent his baby. Maybe if he said the destruction was to Pepper's parts, _she _could get the people to come and fix it.

Or he could do it himself, as he knew he would, with redesigned floors to suit his new Avenger buddies. And the Vikings, if they stayed that long.

_"Great." _Hiccup's tone implied it was anything but. _"So, where's everyone else?"_

* * *

Everyone else, Hiccup discovered, had retreated to the room he'd woken up in. A quite small room, he noted now that he wasn't busy trying to work out what in Thor's name was going on - and Thor was here, wasn't he? He was never going to get used to that. Small, but strangely decorated, and still no sign of the Man In The Ceiling. J, he thought he'd head Tony call him.

"Hey, man in the ceiling?" he called, looking upwards - _perhaps that's where he's hiding._

"Yes?" For such a strangely inexpressive voice, it sounded quite amused at his new name.

"Who are you?"

"It's more of a what." the voice admitted. "JARVIS - Just A Rather Very Intelligent System. Mr Stark named me."

_Mr Stark. Must be Tony. _"So where are you hiding? It can't be very comfortable in the roof. And how come you can speak Norse?"

"I'm a computer program. An AI, if you will." Again with the amusement. "Vikings don't have computers, so you wouldn't understand. It's... a place to store information, and then display it."

"Like a notebook?" Hiccup checked. "Just a really clever one, that talks instead of showing its pages?"

"I suppose."

"Wow."

_"Done chatting with J?" _Tony asked. He sounded just as amused as the AI though, so he probably wasn't annoyed. _"Your friends went upstairs; there's room for them and the dragons there."_

"Ah, okay." _Time for introductions..._

* * *

By the time Hiccup and Tony found the rest of the group, they'd already well and truly made themselves at home.

Snotlout was already in a headlock; Hiccup wasn't surprised that he'd already managed to irritate the red-headed woman - clearly she and Astrid would be getting along well though, if that reaction was anything to go by. It was slightly surprising that nobody was interested in Thor anymore - the twins were talking to - or rather, at - a man who Hiccup couldn't remember seeing, and Astrid was admiring the arrows of the one Tony had called Legolas. Eret just seemed happy that Ruffnut was preoccupied, while Fishlegs was cowering away from the red-head.

"Hey guys." Hiccup alerted everyone to his presence. "What's going on?"

"Help me!" Snotlout said dramatically from his place on the floor. "She's insane!"

"You probably deserve it." Hiccup was unsympathetic. "Trying to chat her up?"

"Ladies just can't resist the Snotlout charm!" _Taking that as a yes..._

"Nothing much," Astrid answered the original question, moving over from the guy with the arrows. "just been talking. What about you and that guy?" She gestured towards Tony.

"Took him for a flight." he explained. "This is a pretty interesting place. It's called New York, apparently."

_"This is a great reunion and all," _Tony interrupted, _"but I think we need some actual introductions."_

"Well, most of you already know me," Hiccup started.

_"Yeah, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third."_ Tony smirked. _"Great name."_

"Better than Snotlout," Hiccup shot back, gesturing to the Viking on the floor.

"Hey, I can introduce my - aargh! What was that for?"

The woman had decided that a headlock wasn't enough, apparently, and had shoved Snotlout's face into the floor. Hiccup definitely approved of her.

_"That's Widow." _Tony said. _"Well, Black Widow. Natasha Romanoff - if that is indeed her real name. _The **joke** was lost on most people in the room. _"Well anyway, this is Clint, or Hawkeye."_

_"Hey." _the man Astrid had been chatting with raised a hand, not looking up from the arrow-head he was fiddling with.

_"This is Bruce. He's that giant green rage monster from before - you may have noticed him; he's called the Hulk."_

_"Or just the Other Guy." _the man Hiccup didn't recognise said with a slight smile. _"The Hulk, that is. Or Big Guy; depends who you ask." _Hiccup was quite interested with him already. How could he change forms like that?

_"And that's the star-spangled man with a plan, Steve. Or Captain America, or Capsicle, or Captain Stick-Up-His-Ass."_

_"Please don't call me any of those last ones."_ the man with the shield requested. He sounded nice enough, if a tad more formal than the others.

_"I'm guessing you already know Point Break, so that's about it." _Tony finished, tapping the Asgardian's chest with his knuckles. Hiccup nodded slightly to his guess; obviously, they all knew Thor. Though he'd never heard him referred to as 'Point Break'.

"What about that guy?" Astrid asked, pointing to the man in the corner. Whoever he was, Tony didn't seem to like him. "You didn't introduce him."

_"Oh, yeah. Can't forget the SHIELD guy."_ Tony slapped his forehead in faked irritation. _"It's__ Popeye - don't let anyone tell you otherwise."_

_"Nick Fury. Director of the Strategic Homeland -"_

_"I agree with Hiccup; nobody cares." _Tony cut him off, ignoring the glare he received.

_"Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division." Fury continued as if Tony hadn't spoken._

_"Great, now we're all good and introduced." _Tony grinned. _"Howzabout telling us more about that portal?" _He directed the question to the 'SHIELD guy'. _What do they know about it?_

_"Our good friend Selvig might have something to say about it, but I'm not going to interrupt him while he recovers." _Fury said. Hiccup frowned - another person to deal with?

"Would it be possible to open it again, though?" Hiccup wondered. From the way these people were talking about it, they were the ones responsible for opening it in the first place.

_"Selvig is the one who designed it," _Fury elaborated, _"so he may be able to recreate it." _He said it quite deliberately. _They don't know whether they can or not._

"Why _wouldn't _they be able to?"

_"They were under mind control when they did it." _Clint said moodily. The dragons shuffled uncomfortably at the mention of mind control; it was still a sore subject, especially when Toothless was involved.

The Avengers turned to look at Hawkeye as he made his comment. Clearly, mind control was a sore subject with them, too.

"Maybe we should stop talking about that aspect of this," Hiccup suggested.

"Hear hear." Clint said, just as darkly as his other comment had been.

"and get back onto the topic of the portal." Hiccup finished. He looked expectantly over at Fury.

_"I'm sure it can be done," _the man confirmed. _"but not now. It's too risky; we might end up inviting another alien invasion."_

"_That's _what destroyed this place?" Tuffnut asked. "Cool."

"So, what _can _we do?"

_"We can chuck Popeye out." _Tony said irritably, glaring at the man with the eye patch.

'Popeye' glared at Tony. _"We need to debrief first." _he said sternly. Hiccup was beginning to think that he said everything sternly.

_"How's this for a debrief: we beat Loki, there aren't any more Chitauri, and I don't care what SHIELD has to say on the matter."_

Fury looked even less impressed than he had before - Hiccup hadn't thought it possible; he'd finally found someone more constantly exasperated than Stoick had been. _"I'll come back tomorrow, for a _proper _debriefing."_

He swept his gaze around the room, expression not changing, and gave Tony one last glare for good measure before he finally left.

* * *

Tony grinned at the group. Sure, it was a bit rough around the edges - a lot rough around the edges - and they might have a few kinks to work out - a lot of kinks to work out - but it was coming together nicely. The addition of the Vikings didn't seem to have affected that dynamic _too _badly - in fact, Tony was really looking forwards to getting to know Hiccup a bit more.

"You know what we need?" he said, nodding slightly in praise of himself because this idea was just _awesome _and man was he glad he was the one that came up with it.

"A drink?" Clint guessed, eyeing the bar, one of the only things in the room that _hadn't _been destroyed. Tony narrowed his eyes at him; no one was getting to _his _drinks without his explicit opinion.

"No." Tony shook his head, talking to Hawkeye as he would a small child. "We need a team bonding exercise!"

"Wasn't the battle team bonding enough?" Clint shot back, clearly unimpressed. _Spoilsport._

"I thought we agreed that that was a party." Natasha grinned.

Clint pouted. "I thought you were on my side?"

"I'm on the winning side." Natasha corrected. And she was right; Cap was nodding, clearly impressed by Tony's willingness to get along; Thor was always happy to partake in what he surely thought were strange Midgardian customs; Bruce was shaking his head in amused resignation; and the Vikings were shrugging among themselves.

"That's..." Tony did a mental headcount, "twelve against one, there."

"Fine." Clint folded his arms and flopped down onto the nearest sofa. "What are we doing? Hide and seek? Truth or dare?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of twenty questions, actually." Tony corrected. "Or rather, one question. Everyone gets to ask someone else one question!"

"Fine." Clint repeated. "But I can refuse." he bargained.

Knowing the archer's past as a spy, Tony reluctantly agreed. "Great. I'll go first - Peg-leg, what's up with that?" He pointed towards Hiccup's prosthetic.

_"It was a dragon." _Hiccup explained. Tony noticed that the other Avengers had pretty much the same reaction to that as him, barring little miss I-don't-have-emotions, whose expression remained as neutral as always. They were all - he guessed; he wasn't a mind reader - thinking about the dragons in the room with them, and how easy it would be for one of them to just bite someone's limb off.

Hiccup seemed to realise that too, as he continued. _"It was a massive dragon, much different from all these." _he said quickly. _"It was controlling all the other dragons, so I had to kill it. Didn't count on falling off Toothless's back and straight into an explosion, though..."_

Well, that explained that. Tony wasn't sure if he was glad he asked or not. _Well, his bad-ass level just rose..._

The other Avengers were calming now too, and stopped inching away from the reptiles in their midst.

"When was that?" Cap asked suddenly, still frowning. _Figures that Mr Morality would go for the age question._

"Umm... five years ago? I was fifteen... sounds about right."

Slaying the dragon at fifteen? Bad-ass levels: through the roof.

"Hey, I got a question." Clint said, looking at Tony. "Can I get a drink now?"

Tony sighed - figured he'd get all the boring ones. "Fine, knock yourself out." He looked around the group - none of them were really looking at him anymore. "Anyone else?" he checked anyway.

Silence. _Typical._

_"Um... question for... for Thor."_ one of the Vikings - Fisheggs, was it? - asked nervously. He even raised a trembling hand to boot. _Adorable. "Why are you here?"_

"My brother Loki was the one who started this battle. I had to help end it."

Point Break's smile had disappeared at the mention of his brother, replaced by the Asgardian's best serious face. _Guy needs to sort out his family issues. _Tony decided.

_"Yeah, I have a question for the Black Widow." _Snotface - or whatever his name was - asked, in what Tony assumed the Viking thought to be a Very Sexy Voice, capitals and all. As a man who knew a lot about Very Sexy Voices, Tony could confirm that no, it wasn't, and yes, he was lining himself up for a good kick in the balls. _"Do you wanna go out with -"_

"Do you want to keep your insides inside you?" Natasha asked in return, using a voice-with-caps of her own: the Super Scary Voice. Snotlout nodded, whimpering slightly. _Poor kid, doesn't know who he's up against. _"Then I suggest you don't finish that question."

Astrid grinned at Natasha's words. _"I have a different question." _she asked. Widow nodded, happier to accept the new question. _"Do you want to join the Anti-Snotlout Club?"_

Natasha grinned, and a beautiful friendship was born. _Note to self: stay away from those two._

_"Hey, Bruce, was it?" _Hiccup asked, getting the scientist's attention.

"Yeah. I'm guessing that wasn't your question?"

_"Hm. I was wondering about the Other Guy." _Hiccup said, almost cautiously - he must've known it was another sore subject. _Kid's perceptive. "How do you go from one form to the other?"_

Bruce relaxed; that was a relatively safe question. "It happens when I'm angry." he revealed.

Hiccup nodded at that, not as concerned as Tony had seen other people be when receiving that news. _Keep it up and you'll be a science bro in no time. _he decided - he hadn't actually revealed his secret science club idea to Bruce yet, but he wasn't letting the other man say no when he did. Hiccup did, however, send a nervous glance over at the twins. From what Tony had seen so far, they were probably the irritating idiots of the Viking group, so Hiccup would fear them getting Bruce to Hulk out.

"It's not that easy to make it happen though," Bruce had also noticed Hiccup's worried glance. "so you don't need to worry about them."

The twins looked disappointed at that. _Definitely the irritating idiots._

"Well, since I've answered one, I'll ask one." Bruce reasoned. "Can any of you speak a different language?"

Ah, looking for some less technology-based communication. Smart.

_"I'm guessing Dragonese doesn't count here?" _Hiccup guessed. _"In which case, no. Sorry."_

"It's alright." Tony assured. It was still awesome that they could talk to dragons.

There was a comfortable silence in which no one had anything good to say, then: _"How did you destroy all this stuff?"_

Ruffnut and Tuffnut had spoken at the same time, and were now eagerly awaiting an answer. _I'm sure we talked about this already..._

"You mean the city?" Tony checked. Identical nods. _Creepy. _"Well, we had a little help from the alien invasion."

_"Aliens? Cool!" _the twins grinned. Tony shook his head; they really _didn't _remember the conversation from just five minutes ago. He decided not to elaborate; he didn't want them to actually remember something and end up getting tips.

"Do you have a question?" Steve asked, gesturing to the man in the corner. He shook his head.

_"Nah; can't think of anything."_

Tony shrugged. _Fair enough. _"And you, Point Break?"

"Yes." Thor said, smiling slightly again. "When is the feast?"

* * *

After convincing Thor that the feast would be taking place any time now - Hiccup still wasn't over that (_Thor. _Just..._ Thor)_ but he was getting used to the idea, at least - the Avengers sat down and started bandaging themselves up. It left the Vikings with nothing to do, without having been in a battle themselves, so they retreated to the dragons.

_'You okay, bud?' _Hiccup checked, realising that he hadn't really had a chance to talk to Toothless since their brief flight.

_'I'm bored.' _Toothless complained. Hiccup laughed. _H__e'll be fine. 'What're we doing now?'_

_'Waiting for the Avengers to finish patching themselves up.' _Hiccup explained. _'Shouldn't take too long, hopefully. Then I think we're getting some food.'_

Toothless grinned. _'Great; I'm _starving.'

Ah yes, the poor Night Fury hadn't eaten anything for over an hour! How terrible.

_'I'm sure you'll survive,' _Hiccup said, the embodiment of sympathy. Toothless snorted at him but didn't comment, and the two lay down on the floor.

* * *

Tony looked down at the Viking and dragon duo. _Cute, _he thought, grinning at his luck as he realised that the two were in a perfect position for the security cameras to catch him - yes he has security cameras in his house, he's Tony God Damn Stark.

The other Vikings were over on the other side of the room, being given earpieces by Bruce, who was trying to explain to them that it was like a miniature version of the Man In The Ceiling - who knew that that was what they were calling JARVIS?. Somehow, the job had fallen to Tony to wake up the sleeping chief.

"Hey Peg-Leg." he said, nudging him with his foot. Nothing. "Get up; it's shawarma time."

_"Go away..." _he mumbled sleepily. _Well that's just rude._

"No can do." Tony smirked. "Get up or I'll throw you out the window."

_"Toothless'll just catch me..."_

Dang. He wasn't even fazed for a second. "Just get up? Please?" _Yes, of course pleading will work._ _Hiccup one, Stark nil._

_"M'kay," _Hiccup muttered, pushing himself away from Toothless's wings and leaving the protective embrace of his dragon buddy. _"You happy now?" _he asked, more awake.

"Very." Tony confirmed. "Now if you'd make your way over to the big green rage machine," - _ha, rhyme - _"we can give you something to help with the language barrier when we leave the tower."

Hiccup nodded and went over to get his earpiece. He frowned for a second, presumably confused at the sudden voice in his ear. _"Oh, hey JARVIS."_

Not The Man In The Ceiling? Tony officially promoted Hiccup to Science Bro status.

"Come on," he said, grabbing his hand and leading him over to the door, "our shawarma awaits!"

* * *

Hiccup had never heard of shawarma before. It was a food, apparently, that Tony had decided would be perfect for a post-battle meal. A bit different from the feasts Berk liked to have, but each to their own.

Tony had led the dragon riders and the Avengers down the tower - the amount of steps was amazing, but to be expected for how far up they were. It was only once they got to the bottom that they realised they could've used their dragons to make the trip quicker, by which point it was too late.

"We can do it on the way back up." Hiccup had pointed out, and the rest of the group had shrugged.

Now they were stood outside the 'shawarma joint', having an argument.

_"We can't bring dragons in with us!" Steve pointed out. "They wouldn't actually fit through the door."_

_"Yeah, but Hiccup says that he and Toothless go everywhere together."_

Correction: Tony and the Captain (Captain of what, though?) were having an argument. Apparently it was a regularly occurring thing, for the all of a day that they'd been in each other's presence. A sort of hate at first sight, one that Hiccup was quickly tiring of. _How did they save the world with teamwork like _this?

"Hiccup says that he doesn't mind as long as he gets fed." Hiccup interrupted. He really didn't mind; he could easily find fish for Toothless, and the dragons were used to having to stay outside. Okay, Toothless wasn't so much, but the others were!

_"It's impractical." _Cap reasoned.

_"Everything else is broken, what's one more wall? Besides, if they're still open after an alien invasion, are they really going to be surprised by dragons?"_

"For his sake!" Hiccup shouted, pointing over at Thor. "They'll stay outside if they have to."

Tony and Steve stared at him for a minute, looking between the Viking and Thor. They continued their staring for a few seconds, then -

_"Ha! That's amazing." _Tony grinned. _"Well, looks like problem's solved. Come on, Capsicle!"_

Everyone followed Tony into the building, slightly less enthusiastically than the billionaire himself. Like most buildings in the city, it looked like it was about to fall down. The walls were already crumbling, and all the surfaces had a thick lining of dust to them.

_"Hope nobody has asthma," _Tony joked as he grabbed a table, brushing the dirt off it as he started pulling it into the middle of the room. Fishlegs shuffled around awkwardly, then set about helping the billionaire put the tables together.

Hiccup helped by grabbing a few chairs, hefting them over to the tables and only slightly resenting the fact that the man with the shield - he wasn't even holding the shield anymore, he was going to have to come up with something better to call him. His name, perhaps. Maybe once he could remember it for more than three seconds... - was able to easily carry a stack of them. At least he _tried, _which was more than could be said for Clint.

He found a way to be genuinely helpful when Toothless started trying to fit his head through the door, going over to help the dragon get unstuck and ending up bringing him in.

"Sorry," he apologised as he walked over to the completed table, "he really doesn't like waiting outside."

_"It's okay." _the shield guy - not to be confused with the SHIELD guy - said warmly. (_Steve. _That was his name.) _"Now, how about we order?"_

_"Good idea," _Tony agreed. _"So, shawarma for everyone? Thought so!" _He didn't give time for anyone to argue, marching up to the counter before anyone could even open their mouths.

And Hiccup _still _didn't know what a shawarma even was.

A woman came up to the counter to serve Tony, looking completely unsurprised at the collection of superheroes and Vikings that had turned up in her restaurant. It had just been one of those days, apparently.

She took the orders and retuned to the back room, presumably to cook the food. That gave Hiccup some time to ask the all-important question: "What even is shawarma, anyway?"

Tony took a moment to look at him in over-dramatic horror. _"You don't know what shawarma is?" _he gasped, reaching a hand out to gently grasp Hiccup's face. _"Oh you poor, deprived child."_

_"Stop with the dramatics and explain it already!" _Clint snapped.

Tony laughed. _"Yeah, I dunno what shawarma is. It'll make a nice surprise when it arrives!"_

Despite having known the man for less than a day, Hiccup couldn't say that he was actually surprised at his antics.

"As long as its edible..."

* * *

Tony looked down at the shawarma and blinked. He wasn't sure what he'd expected when he'd decided to try it, but he decided that the reality was probably better. Or maybe he was too tired to have functioning taste buds anymore. Whatever.

Nobody seemed up for conversation now that the food had arrived. The Avengers because, hey, they _had _just saved the city from an alien takeover and the Vikings because, well, none of them looked much inclined towards civilised conversation - Hiccup was no longer counting as a Viking, in this instance. Far too clever and Science Bro-y - and they were getting used to being in a different universe.

That made for silence in the room, except for the occasional sound of someone taking a bite of their food. Steve looked like he was about to fall asleep in his; his head kept dipping down into his hand, then he'd snap back into alertness, only to repeat the routine. Everyone else was content just to eat without bothering to look at anyone else.

A few whispered words in the hacking-cough language that was Dragonese - if he ever did learn it, he was only going to learn how to understand it - caught Tony's attention. Hiccup was handing some of his shawarma to Toothless, who was accepting the food happily. Tony shrugged, about to turn back to his own meal, when Toothless started choking on it.

He was about to jump up and help the dragon, still in superhero mode, until he realised that the choking noises the Night Fury was making were an attempt at _regurgitating _the food. _Ew. _Still, Hiccup didn't look surprised at the development. Instead, he sighed, braced himself, and ate the offered food. _Double ew._

There was a cute moment that followed when Toothless mirrored Hiccup's smile, but it was still disgusting.

Oh well, he hadn't had that much shawarma left, anyway.

* * *

"Which dragon are you getting on?" Hiccup asked. Tony had already bagsied Toothless - Hiccup had no idea what that meant, but he had a feeling that it didn't involve actual bags - which left the rest of the Avengers to choose their way up to the tower.

_"I'm going with Astrid." _Natasha decided, hopping onto Stormfly with minimal help from the Viking. Snotlout made a whimpering sound at that, clutching his chest as if wounded.

_He'll get over it._

"How about you then?" Sure enough, Snotlout bounced back like a rubber band. He grinned at Clint as he spoke. "Wanna experience the awesome power of a Monstrous Nightmare?"

Clint looked at Hookfang, shrugged, and hopped on.

_'Don't set fire to him.' _Hiccup warned. Hookfang snorted.

_'Spoilsport.'_

Steve looked up at the dragons cautiously. _"I don't know which to get on." _he admitted.

"Ooh!" Fishlegs started bouncing around, waving his hand in the air. "You should definitely choose Meatlug! She has a heart of gold!"

Steve hopped on, and Hiccup chuckled at his friend's predictability. "Who's left?"

_"Bruce." _Tony reminded him, pointing at the other scientist.

"Ah. He should probably go with Skullcrusher then." Hiccup advised, glancing over at the twins, who were having another fight. "Okay guys," he glared at Snotlout, "give them a gentle flight."

_"And _our _first flight was gentle?" _Tony asked sarcastically.

"Shut up."

Tony grinned. _"I'm wounded. Now let's go!"_

* * *

Hiccup looked over at Tony, who was sprawled out on his bed. With the amount of the tower that was destroyed, there wasn't enough room for everyone to have their own room, so everyone had decided to share in the same way that they had shared dragons. It meant that the twins were the only one to keep their normal arrangement, but Hiccup was pretty sure that no one minded, since it meant that they didn't have to spend more time with them.

Hiccup was lucky in that he was sharing with the owner of the tower, so the room he was in was the best one. It was certainly more comfortable than his own room back on Berk, but it was also much less familiar. Technology lined every wall, gadgets that Hiccup had never seen and didn't understand scattered all over the floor. Most of them were, apparently, of Tony's own design. It was a bit daunting, how little he knew, but Hiccup was determined to learn.

Speaking of learning...

"JARVIS?" Hiccup whispered. He knew that the - AI? Comp-something, he'd said he was - was there; Tony had said goodnight to him. The billionaire really did treat him like an invisible man in the ceiling, despite insisting that he wasn't. _But do invisible people in the ceiling need sleep?_

"Yes?" JARVIS whispered back, or spoke at a volume matching Hiccup's own.

"Could you teach me English?"

"Of course, sir."

* * *

**So, that was pretty long. And, having started work on the next chapter, I know it's only going to get longer. I've had to split it in two because it'd end up being more than 10,000 words otherwise...  
Continue with the feedback (delicious, delicious feedback) please! I'm taking the suggestions into account - speaking of which, I'm not sure whether to give the Vikings superpowers or not. If my rough plot is actually followed, they won't be in New York for much more than a month (maybe two?), so if they had powers they'd barely have time to get used to them. Thoughts?**


	3. Is That a Challenge?

**A/n: this chapter originally contained what is now chapter four. I've managed to write myself a bit ahead, but chapter four still isn't finished. If it was still attached to this chapter, the total word count would be over 10,000. So I cut it in half... (Speaking of which: what's everyone's opinion on chapter lengths? Would you prefer them a bit shorter, or a bit longer, or are they okay as they are now?)**

* * *

Tony slept like a brick. It was the first time in ages that he'd managed to do that, and all it had taken was a quick jaunt into space and a casual fight with an alien army.

Who knew?

Opening his eyes simply because JARVIS had informed him of the position of the other Avengers - awake, in his kitchen, and hungry - Tony realised that the same didn't go for Hiccup.

"Did you even sleep?" he wondered, looking over at the Viking, who was now hunched over a book and scribbling furiously.

"No."

"Oh, okay." _Wait. _It was almost embarrassing that his sleep-clouded mind hadn't picked up instantly on Hiccup's speech. Actually, it _was _embarrassing. A lot embarrassing. "Did you just... English?"

"Yes." Hiccup confirmed. _"That's what I've been doing all night. I've only got a few phrases so far, and a bunch of words, but it's a start."_

A _start? _Tony wasn't sure whether to laugh or clap. "That's amazing..." he settled for awed praise. "Well, I _have _to learn Norse now!"

_"_You probably will have to." Hiccup agreed. _"Maybe Astrid and Fishlegs will give it a shot, Eret if he's feeling particularly motivated, but the others are pretty much allergic to learning."_

"I want to learn Dragonese before that," Tony revealed, "not how to speak it - it sounds really painful - but how to understand it, definitely."

Hiccup nodded, then frowned in concentration. "I'll teach you..." he said eventually, "it isn't hard."

Coming from someone who'd managed to learn a lot of English in not a lot of time, Tony figured it'd probably be pretty hard.

"Sir, Clint is threatening to steal all the food if you don't 'get your ass down here right now'."

Ah yes, there was a reason he'd got up. "Well, come on Hiccup, let's see if everyone's killed each other without their handsome leaders to guide them."

* * *

"Hey Hiccup!" Eret grinned as the two stragglers finally turned up for breakfast. "Good thing you turned up when you did. I don't think Astrid could hold Toothless back for much - whoa!"

Eret was cut off as Toothless leapt over him, tail bashing him on the head as he went. Any attempts at conversation the Avengers may have been about to start were put on hold as everyone turned to stare at Hiccup, who was currently twitching on the floor as Toothless grinned down at him.

"It's good to see you too, bud," Hiccup breathed out, wind knocked out of him by the dragon landing on his stomach. "but I kinda need to get up now..."

Toothless bounced off his rider as enthusiastically as he'd jumped onto him, sitting onto his haunches and cocking his head.

_"You okay?"_ Tony asked as he offered a hand to help the Viking up. Hiccup nodded, accepting the help and brushing himself down. _"He's happy to see you."_ he observed.

"You don't know the half of it..." Hiccup glanced back over at Toothless, who was now wriggling in his excitement. "Yes, Mr Jumpy, we'll go on a flight later." Honestly, caring for the night fury was such hard work. But Hiccup wouldn't trade it for the world, even if that meant getting dragon saliva all over his clothes on a regular basis. Speaking of which...

_"Ugh, that's gross."_ Clint pointed out helpfully, shifting away from Hiccup as Toothless licked him. The other Vikings laughed as Hiccup informed Toothless once again of how hard it was to wash out - he was beginning to think that the dragon would never learn. Or, much more likely, he already knew, and that was precisely why he did it, because he was an irritating little shit like that. But Hiccup loved him anyway.

"So, what are we doing now?" Astrid asked. "We probably can't go back yet, but what _can _we do?"

_"You can help me design some floors." _Tony offered.

"You could get JARVIS to help you learn some English," Hiccup suggested. "or go for a flight."

"Who's Jarvis?" Astrid frowned. "I haven't seen anyone else in the tower."

"I'm JARVIS." Hiccup had to restrain laughter as the others jumped in surprise. _They really didn't ask? The twins, yeah, but Fishlegs and Astrid? _"Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, an AI created by Mr Stark."

As JARVIS started to explain basic technology to the other Vikings, Tony resumed conversation with the Avengers and Hiccup: _"Seriously, I'm rebuilding the floors, so if you have any suggestions for yours, speak now or forever be disappointed."_

_"What makes you think we're going to live in the tower?" _Clint challenged.

_"My amazing charm and genius?" _Tony asked sarcastically. _"Where else? You SHIELD guys going back to Hard-ass on the helicarrier? I'll be honest, the idea wouldn't exactly fill _me_ with joy."_

Clint frowned, thinking it over. _"Fine, I'll live here." _he agreed, voice taking on a sulking quality. _"But I get full vent access."_

"Why would you want that?" Hiccup wondered. These Avengers were shaping up to be even weirder than his own friends, and that was saying something.

_"Hawkeye. Clue's in the name." _Tony said simply. Hiccup frowned, still not understanding but knowing when to give up, and looked around the table at the other Avengers.

"What do you do all day?" he asked, suddenly realising that - unless New York was under constant attack from aliens, in which case the people who lived there must be as stubborn as Vikings, and they probably wouldn't have evacuated - they couldn't spend their whole time protecting the city.

_"SHIELD work, spy stuff."_ Natasha explained shortly. _"If we stayed, we'd be away a lot, on missions."_

_"That's fine - you can stick around when Director Douchey doesn't require your services."_ All of Tony's nicknames were, by now, pretty hard to keep up with. Hiccup suspected that he wouldn't have a clue who the man was talking about if he wasn't referring to someone who had been mentioned in the discussion quite recently.

_"I'm supposed to be on the run at the moment,"_ Bruce volunteered with an awkward smile. _"which would be pretty hard, if I was in one place."_

_"We can keep you hidden," _Tony reasoned, _"and you haven't had an accident in ages." _Hiccup was getting the feeling that Tony wanted his new teammates to stick around. Bruce still didn't look convinced though. _"I'll even build a Hulk-proof room for you - not that you'll need it."_

The last sentence was enough to sway the scientist, and Tony's plans - though unknown as yet to anyone - of having two science bros were saved.

_"Great!" _Tony clapped his hands together. _"Well, that's about everyone now, so I'll go get started on -"_

_"You didn't get my opinion." _Steve pointed out calmly. Hiccup couldn't at all tell what the man was thinking. Tony apparently did, as he heaved a huge sigh before he spoke.

_"You don't need to pull out full stick-up-your-ass mode, honestly. I assumed that, as a frail old man, you'd like to have some people around to take care of you."_

Steve sighed irritably. _Old man? _Hiccup voiced his confusion.

_"Oh, you weren't there for that." _Clint said helpfully. _"Basically, SHIELD pulled this guy up from the ice a couple months back. He was in there for about seventy years, so he's, like, ninety now."_

"Oh." Hiccup said intelligently. That just about summed it up.

_"Yeah, bunch of weirdoes we have here." _Tony agreed. _"The guy who thinks he's a bird," _Clint scowled, _"a Latin-speaking assassin," _Tony looked at Natasha accusingly, and gained a cold look in response, though Hiccup thought it might have been a slightly more light-hearted one than an I'm-going-to-kill-you one, _"Capsicle, radiation experiment gone wrong, a bunch of Vikings and a Norse god."_

_"What about you?" _Clint said accusingly.

_"Well, I'm just too devilishly handsome for my own good. It's a miracle that this much charm can be contained in one man, but I manage." _he put on his best weary sigh for effect.

Natasha scoffed. _"No, you've got a miniature version of the world's best clean energy supply strapped to your chest, keeping you alive."_

"You _what?"_

The others stared at Hiccup for a second.

_"I keep forgetting that you don't know any of this stuff." _Tony admitted. _"My little holiday in Afghanistan is common knowledge by now, really. If you want to know more, just google it."_

_Google? _Hiccup was, if anything, more confused, but he could tell that Tony didn't want to talk about it. And if what Natasha had said about the blue light in his chest keeping him alive was true, then he probably had good reason not to.

_"Well!" _Tony said suddenly, straightening up a bit, _"I think it's time to get started on that... see ya!" _He span round neatly, taking a piece of bread from the table and tossing it to a strange machine that _caught it_ - Hiccup was pleased to see that he wasn't the only one shocked by that particular development - and grabbing a mug from a different machine as he passed it. By the time he was at the door, the bread machine had finished its task, and spat the now toasted food into Tony's waiting hand. He gave a salute without turning round, then the doors closed behind him.

_"Show-off." _Clint grumbled, and Hiccup felt he had to agree.

* * *

Tony had barely managed to get started on his latest project - he'd brought up the original floor plan, and deleted the necessary floors - before he was interrupted.

"Sir, one of the Vikings wishes to enter." JARVIS said. Tony looked over and saw Hiccup standing outside. He gave the man a wave.

"Okay, let him in."

JARVIS complied, and Hiccup wandered in. He walked up to the desk Tony was working at, taking his time in looking at all the inventions that surrounded him. Tony couldn't help but smile slightly at the look of obvious awe on Hiccup's face as he stared at each new gadget, completely amazed by all the new tech. It was no surprise; the lab was a hive of activity, machinery everywhere and sparks coming off all the ones that were in use as they melded and cut and shaped their given material, with the perfect balance of rock songs and the sound of metal against metal as the background music. It probably smelled like metal, too - Tony wouldn't know, having spent so much time in it that he was used to it - and a faint hint of burning.

_"So this is your workshop."_

Tony nodded. "Yeah. A bit more high-tech than what you have, I'll bet."

_"Since there isn't a fire here to heat your metal, I'd say it is, yeah." _Hiccup agreed. _"Fury's here." _he said, abruptly changing the topic.

"What? Why didn't you tell me?" Tony directed the conversation towards the ceiling.

"I was not aware, sir." JARVIS admitted.

_"He came in through the window, so I'm not surprised." _Hiccup revealed.

Stupid Fury and his stupid break-ins. "Well, that's just great. Here for that _'proper_ debriefing', I suppose." he copied Fury's tone as he spoke, getting a laugh from his Viking friend in return.

_"He said something about... tesse-something... and Loki. Thor didn't look happy, whatever it was."_

Well, if something was upsetting Point-Break, it had to be about Loki - and probably punishment, given the Asgardian's love for his adopted brother. Tony sighed, heaving himself off the bench with exaggerated reluctance. "We'd better see what it's about."

* * *

If Hiccup was being totally honest, he didn't really want to deal with Fury again, ever. But, part of being chief - or just having maturity in general, something which only he and Astrid managed to achieve, out of all his friends - was acting civil to people you'd rather be yelling at, so he didn't complain when the director barged in through the still-broken window. He couldn't help but return the cold look, though.

After a quick trip down to tell Tony what was going on, the two geniuses returned to have their nice chat.

"What do you want?" Okay, so maybe it wasn't _nice, _but it wasn't downright aggressive, either. And he'd managed to get the first word in.

_"Thor needs to take the Tesseract back to Asgard."_ Fury explained snappishly. _"And the rest of you need to be there."_

"Why?" Hiccup was surprised to note that it was Astrid who formed the first reply, and glad that it was another question.

Fury glared at Astrid for a moment - a glare that was defiantly returned - before answering. _"_You _don't need to be there. The Avengers do."_

_"In which case, they're definitely coming." _Tony decided brightly. _"Unofficial Avengers members, they are. Gonna come with us on all our missions, with their dragons."_

Fury sighed. _"Fine. You and your little pets can come along."_

Hiccup grinned at the other man's annoyance, turning to make a Night Fury call and get Toothless out from the kitchen, where he'd doubtlessly eaten all of Tony's fish supply by now. "Good. So, where to, _Popeye?"_

* * *

The Avengers arrived in style. Tony and Thor came in beside the dragons, flying in the suit and using Mjolnir respectively, while the others decided upon a more conventional travel route. Steve used his motorbike, with Bruce tagging along by clinging to him, and the spies took a SHIELD vehicle, which they parked out of sight. They were refusing to divulge into what kind of vehicle it was. Personally, Hiccup thought that, whatever it was, it probably wasn't as impressive as everything else SHIELD used (he'd seen the helicarrier when Fury first arrived; very little could top that).

"What are we doing here?" Eret asked, patting Skullcrusher. "Are we supposed to be doing something?"

"We better not be!" Snotlout said loudly. "Me and Hookfang are gonna go flying now, so if you don't need us -"

"We don't need you." Astrid assured flatly.

Snotlout frowned, shrugged, then took off on Hookfang. The twins followed behind him, disappearing from view just as Steve walked up.

_"Thor's gone back to Asgard with Loki." _he told them. _"I don't see why we had to be there, really, but we're going back now."_

_"We were here for dramatic effect, Captain Obvious."_ Steve rolled his eyes at Tony's jab. _"Gives the big bosses something to look at on their little screens, doesn't it?"_

That confused both Hiccup and Steve, but Tony didn't elaborate.

_"Where are the rest of your little friends?" _he asked, directing it at Hiccup this time with a falsified affronted tone. _"It's so _rude _of them to just walk off like that!"_

_"You think everything's rude." _Steve pointed out.

Tony laughed dryly. _"So, you do have a sense of humour, after all..."_

Hiccup grinned at Tony's amazement. _'So, should we go back, bud?'_

Toothless nodded, smile matching his rider's, and the took off with Tony to go back to the tower.

_Time to learn more English._

* * *

An amount of days later - Hiccup wasn't sure how many, anymore... one? Two? He was still in Tony's - temporarily his - room, and the scientist hadn't come up to greet him, so maybe it hadn't been as long as he thought - Hiccup finally mastered the English language. It had taken an inordinate amount of time - in Hiccup's opinion - especially since he was only learning to speak and understand it. JARVIS assured him that it was even more ludicrously complex when in written form.

Now that he'd put the effort into learning the language, he figured he might as well use it. That was the reason he used for stumbling into the kitchen, where Steve was dishing out ... some kind of food? Probably - to the group of people sat round the table in front of him. He was glad to see that Tony was at the table, slumped over and looking about as coherent as Hiccup felt.

_"Oh, hello Hiccup." _Steve smiled, putting the pan he was holding onto the counter and reaching into a cupboard to grab another plate. _"Joining us for lunch?"_

Hiccup was silent for a moment, collecting his thoughts. The others looked at him expectantly. _"Your language is ridiculous and I hate it."_ he announced, sliding into a chair next to Tony.

_"You got it completely now?"_ Tony asked, a vague sense of surprise in his expression. Hiccup nodded tiredly. _"I'm guessing you didn't sleep, then." _Hiccup nodded again, nearly dipping his head into the food Steve had just slid in front of him. _"It only took you two days. Impressive."_

Hiccup sent him a small smile as thanks for casually mentioning how long he'd been holed up in his room. _Suppose he'd know - looks like he's well versed in the art of sleep deprivation._

_"What is this?" _he asked, looking down at the food. Whatever it was, it smelled amazing.

_"Mac 'n' cheese."_ Steve revealed with a smile.

_"Food of the gods,"_ Clint intoned, taking a forkful from his own bowl and sighing happily at the smell. _"honestly."_

Hiccup took a bite of his food, only slightly hesitantly, and was pleased to discover that 'mac 'n' cheese' was just as good as advertised. He could imagine Thor eating it - the god wasn't present to do it in person, apparently still sorting out Loki's mess in Asgard - and enjoying it.

_"When you're done with the ambrosia," _Tony interrupted Hiccup's enjoyment of his meal, _"think you'd be awake enough to check out the lab some more?"_

Hiccup nodded enthusiastically, food giving him a bit more energy.

Beside him, Toothless pouted. _'Why can't we go flying?' _he complained.

_"What's that?" _Tony asked, cocking his head at the dragon.

_"Toothless wants to go for a flight." _Hiccup explained.

Tony grinned. _"Well, we can't have our dragon companion losing out on flying time, can we? Let's finish this, and then I'll take the suit out."_

* * *

Tony was impressed by the Night Fury's speed. Toothless was easily matching - perhaps even surpassing - the latest suit's max speed, even though Tony had spent his entire time down in the lab, remodelling and improving on the previous model. To be fair, he _had _taken some of that time to work on the tower remodelling, which was coming along quite nicely now. The outside of the tower no longer looked like it was about to give way, and structural collapse was much less imminent.

Hiccup grinned as he passed Tony, dragging him from his reverie as he realised that he'd been slowing as he got distracted by his thoughts. _Oh no you don't... _he thought, determinedly pushing more power into the hands and feet and closing the gap between the Viking and himself.

Once he was level with Hiccup, he realised that the young man was shifting his position. The Viking slowly went from sitting to standing, somehow bracing himself against the wind even though the Night Fury he perched on the back of was going north of sixty miles an hour - not top speed, but still enough that standing up was a feat in itself. With a cheery wave, Hiccup threw himself off the front of his dragon companion.

_What._

Tony was shocked into stopping dead in the air. It took a second for him to regain his bearings and dive after the Viking, who clearly had either a death wish or a strange love of crazy trust exercises. He searched for Hiccup, who would surely be quite a way below him by now, limbs flailing as he went into free-fall.

Or, he would be right in front of him, perfectly fine with his crazy wing-like pieces of leather, which he had attached to his clothes. Had they been there before? Tony looked up at Toothless, who shrugged, expression screaming "what can you do?"

Curse those crazy Vikings and their crazy inventions.

* * *

After a few more, quite frankly dangerous, tricks, Viking, dragon and Avenger made their way back to the tower, and the two humans entered the lab. Tony was glad to see Bruce already there, working on a screen that he couldn't see, on account of Bruce hunching over it so much.

"Hey Bruce," Tony greeted as he walked past, hand up in a lazy wave. Bruce grunted in response, peering at the results on the screen. Tony needed to get another nickname for the man - green rage monster just wasn't cutting it for casual use.

"What's he doing?" Hiccup asked. He understood the sacred rule, not to interrupt someone when they were science-ing. Yes, he was definitely the best Viking. Ever. Tony was proud.

"Other than checking results, I'm not sure. Brucey's a physicist, and I'm an engineer, so we're not into the same kind of stuff, really. What do _you _do?" (Brucey... good casual name, but not a _proper _nickname. And he didn't have one for Hiccup either, come to think of it.)

"Uh... just general inventing. Anything that helps out around the village, really. Or to help dragons, or stuff for Toothless."

"Like the tailfin?" Tony prompted.

"Oh, yeah," Hiccup agreed. "stuff like that. And the leg... my sword."

"Sword?" Tony echoed. Hiccup nodded, producing a small hilt from his trouser... pocket? Tony wasn't sure. It looked more like a lightsaber than anything. "The force is strong in this one." Tony joked.

Hiccup frowned at the reference. "Uh, yeah, that. Well, obviously it isn't much of a sword at the moment, but if you press this here..." Hiccup demonstrated, and a flaming blade popped out of the end. Tony flinched back from the fire, taken by surprise.

"Okay, I'll admit that's cool," Tony conceded, "but is it electronic?"

"No." Hiccup retracted the blade and turned the sword around. "It can do this, though." He released some gas from the other end, igniting it with a spark.

"Wow..." Tony snatched the sword, shaking it as he gave it a once-over. "How does it work?"

"Blade covered in Monstrous Nightmare saliva, other end releases Zippleback gas from these canisters. Press... that... and it creates a spark."

Tony nodded as Hiccup pointed to the relevant parts. Using dragons to create - rather imaginative - weapons. Hiccup was resourceful, certainly - the kind of person who'd be able to invent their way out of a kidnapping?

"Well, not _invent _my way out, but Alvin's made sure I was on the receiving end of a good kidnap - perhaps more than my fair share of times. And I guess the time I met my mother for the first time counts, too..."

Had he said that last bit out loud? Damn.

"Well, time for me to show you some of my stuff." Tony said, putting the kidnapping talk to an abrupt end. Hiccup nodded, glad for the change in topic, and followed Tony over to his main workbench.

"You've seen the suit already," Tony said, pulling up the designs on the screen. Hiccup nodded appreciatively, pouring over the details. "and JARVIS, of course." What to show the Viking? "I'll show you the holographic screens," he decided, "since you can't really do anything in here unless you understand them."

Tony pulled up a screen, displaying a basic suit design. He tapped a quick command into the keyboard in front of him, silently telling JARVIS to start a scan of Hiccup, and began his explanation of - to him - basic technology.

* * *

As Tony and Hiccup left the table, having wolfed down their food so they could get onto other - obviously _much _more important (never let it be said that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit; Astrid survived off it, living with who she did) - tasks. Astrid herself was eating at a slightly less rushed pace, having nothing much to do with the rest of her day. She was contemplating trying her hand at learning English - she wasn't as good at languages as Hiccup, and she knew it, and even her Viking stubbornness wasn't going to be able to keep her awake for the amount of time it'd take for her to learn it.

That said, she didn't really want to go back to her - Natasha's - room, either. Not that it wasn't nice - the beds were _heavenly, _and, since Thor had slept in one, literally fit for gods - but it wasn't very fun. It was spacious, more so than her room in Berk, but it wasn't enough for herself, Natasha and Stormfly to comfortably spend an entire day cooped up in. Maybe she'd go out and catch up with Hiccup, after all - he and Tony had said something about flying, after all.

_"What're you doing today?" _Natasha asked, and that settled it.

"Nothing much. What do _you _usually do?"

The SHIELD agent paused for a moment. _"Well, I'm usually working on the helicarrier, but since we're all living in the tower for a while, I figured I could help rebuild it."_

Astrid nodded thoughtfully - it sounded like a good idea, and not that different from some of the tasks that she usually did in the village. "Well, I can help with that. What are we doing?"

Natasha smiled - a very warm smile, for someone who spent all their time schooling their expression into one of indifference - and picked up her bowl. _"Well, I'm finished. Ready to go clear up rubble for the next few hours?"_

Astrid picked up her own bowl, standing and following Natasha over to the sink - a glorified water bowl, really - to wash her crockery. "It'll be fun - I'm working with a friend."

The statement took Natasha by surprise, but she quickly recovered.

"So, where to?"

* * *

The top floors were the ones which hadn't been cleared. Natasha had started working from the bottom in the hopes of moving upwards, simply collecting up the pieces of rubble which couldn't be of any use and tossing them out of the window. There was no risk of hitting anyone outside - none of those who had evacuated had returned yet, and if they had, and they got hit, it was their own stupid fault for walking around in what SHIELD had classified as a danger zone.

She doubted that people _would _be just milling around on the streets below, though; they were still littered with Chitauri corpses. Removing those was the first part of SHIELD's job, then rebuilding the damaged buildings.

"Make sure to check things first," Natasha advised, turning from the wreckage to look at her new friend, "and only throw away pieces of the building. Tony said that we had to keep the other stuff so that he can try and fix it."

Astrid nodded - she was smart, with a temperament that matched Natasha's own, which easily made her the best of the tower's new inhabitants - and immediately set to work. Natasha followed, starting with some of the larger chunks of wall.

_"Did you used to live on the... helicarrier?" _Astrid asked, not looking up from the piece of dusty metal that she was appraising.

"When not on a mission, yes. Sometimes." Natasha confirmed. Honestly, she lived wherever SHIELD deemed fit - they had several bases in other countries, never mind America - and wherever was convenient for her mission. Since the Tesseract was stolen, that place had become the helicarrier. Now, it seemed that she would be taking up permanent residence in Stark - A, at the moment - tower. What would that mean for her missions?

Astrid nodded in understanding, tossing the metal out of the window and picking up two more bits of material. _"Will we have to go on missions, too?"_

Natasha nearly scoffed, told her that there was no _way _that they'd be able to just start missions, without any training, that she would need years of practice to get to the point when she would become anything more than a burden. She stopped herself, remembering that the person she was talking to was a _Viking, _someone who lived for combat, who lived with and trained dragons like it was normal. They were clearly assets - Fury hadn't locked them up, so he trusted them - so maybe they _would _be sent out, if the rest of the Avengers ever co-operated on a mission again.

_"I don't know." _she responded eventually. Better to give the truth and not confirm anything that would turn out false.

Astrid hummed, placing the two broken pieces of tech in the pile behind her. She opened her mouth again - more questions than Tony Stark, this one had - but was interrupted by the door slamming open.

"Hey," Clint greeted, "what you doin'?"

Natasha rolled her eyes at the greeting, standing up and letting the bits of building fall off her clothes before she stepped over to talk to him properly. "Sorting through the rubble, you?"

_"Well, _I'm _here to ask you on a - ow!" _Natasha blinked, surprised by the sudden presence of a dragon - the blue one was Astrid's, right? - behind Snotlout. (She'd forgotten that it was even in the room, not that she'd admit that.) It had grabbed him up into its mouth, and was shaking him.

_"Did you have to bring _Snotlout?" Astrid complained, glaring at Clint. The archer shrugged, smirking up at the struggling Viking.

"I don't know..." Natasha said, faking thoughtfulness. "He could be could comedy relief."

Snotlout made a noise of protest at that, which ultimately failed and turned into another cry of pain as the dragon - Storm-something. Stormbug? - dropped him, leaving him in an unceremonious heap on the floor.

"I could learn to enjoy that." Natasha commented, and the dragon swelled with pride.

_"Tell your dragon to stop biting me!" _Snotlout snapped, shaking his fist up in said dragon's direction.

_"Stormfly, don't bite Snotlout," _Astrid reprimanded - _Stormfly, that _was her name. Natasha made a note to commit that to memory.

_"_Thank you! _Finally, you -"_

_"pick him up with your talons instead." _Astrid finished, grinning wickedly at Snotlout. The Viking didn't even have time to voice his protest before Stormfly grabbed him up, flying over to the broken window and flying out of it. _"Now, drop him!"_

Natasha grinned too as she heard Snotlout's scream, picking her way through the chunks of wall to peer out of the window. Sure enough, Snotlout was flailing wildly as he fell uncontrollably. It was enough to make her laugh.

Stormfly herself was still standing by the window, watching the boy fall with as much amusement as Natasha was showing. At Astrid's cry of _"Stormfly, fetch!", _the dragon jumped out and dived down to catch him just before he splatted on the pavement.

Snotlout was scowling as he was dropped - quite roughly - back into the room. _"That's not fair - Hookfang wasn't with me." _he protested.

Clint grinned, having remained silent throughout his new friend's mistreatment save for a few very loud laughs, and gave his astute opinion on the matter: "We'll just get them back, way better."

"Is that a challenge?" Natasha asked, eyes sparkling with mischievous intent.

Clint grinned. "Maybe. You'll see." He and Snotlout left the room, and Natasha turned to Astrid.

"We've got to make the first move... Okay, here's what we're gonna do."

* * *

**About the superpowers suggestion: I've had one positive and one negative vote. I can't think what powers would be fitting of any of the Vikings, and it doesn't really work with the plot I've been imagining for this. Unless a lot of people really want it, I don't think it's going to happen - at least not in this fic. Sorry!  
I hadn't thought of having the Avengers go to Berk, though - I might just do that!**


	4. My Name is Legolas, I'm a Princess

**A/n: this was a bit of an experimental chapter, in terms of POV. There are a lot of changes in perspective, partly because the plot demands it, and partly because I want to see how well I handle different characters. It was certainly harder to write, but it's up to you guys to tell me if anyone is OOC, and possibly how to improve on that.**

* * *

Astrid wasn't sure what collecting all the paper from the paper-spewing machine was supposed to do, but she imagined that this prank was more one for Clint than it was for Snotlout. Every piece had a pre-drawn image of a man on it, someone who Astrid didn't recognise. He had long hair, and a quite interesting expression.

"What are we doing with all of these?" she asked, taking another sheet before it fell to the floor.

_"We're going to stick them up all over their room. It's an inside joke - more for Clint."_

Astrid nodded - she _knew _it wasn't for Snotlout - and collected the last of the paper. "Let's go, then."

Natasha turned the paper-spewing machine off and led the way, careful not to let any of the pictures fall out of her arms. They didn't encounter the other two on their way up, and they only had to ask JARVIS whether they were in their room or not before they entered. With a quick request to the AI to keep a look out, they set to work.

Twenty minutes later, they finished. 'Legolas' - Astrid had learnt the name while putting an image of his head on the inside of the toilet seat - was officially _everywhere _in Clint and Snotlout's room. Any pictures of faces now bore Legolas's marvellous image, and there were some hidden in the most obscure of place that Astrid was sure that the two would be discovering them for weeks.

"Let's leave them to discover this." Astrid said, popping her head around the door to check the coast was clear.

_"We'll probably be able to hear their reactions," _Natasha grinned, _"and see them too, thanks to all these security cameras."_

* * *

As it turned out, Astrid and Natasha weren't the only ones who'd decided to get a head start on the pranking. The two arrived back at their room to find it, for some, inexplicable reason, covered in post-it notes.

"Still not better than our prank." Natasha muttered as she slammed the door, sending a few of the brightly coloured squares of paper spiralling slowly to the ground.

_"Yeah," _Astrid agreed, walking over to the bed and shaking the duvet out, sending a waterfall of various luminous sticky notes tumbling to the floor. _"it's pretty in-your-face, a tad obvious. Really lacks the finesse that ours has."_

The winner of the first round was officially decided when a dulled voice sounded from down the corridor: "Who the _hell _put Legolas's face in my _alarm clock?"_

Ah, yes. That one had taken quite a while to manage.

Totally worth it.

* * *

Hiccup looked down at the tower designs. He was helping to develop them, now that he'd worked out how to operate the holographic screens - it would've taken much less long if Hiccup hadn't demanded to know exactly how it worked, but at least he was more knowledgeable on technology because of it.

There were many other inventions scattered across the lab, all in various stages of completion, that robotic arms were working on. Apparently, all that was needed was a specific plan, and the machines would create what you wanted. It was no wonder that Tony could work on so many things in so little time: the actual creation was what usually took Hiccup longest, since he had to make everything by hand.

Tony had even started a new project since Hiccup had arrived, but the inventor was refusing to tell Hiccup what it was. He'd even gone so far as to create a barrier between them while they worked, saying that Hiccup wasn't allowed to know what it was until it was finished.

_"Finished!" _Tony shouted from the other side of the room, emerging from behind the screen with a victorious grin.

_"Already?" _Hiccup asked. The billionaire must be amazing at working with the screens, if he was able to finish in such a short time. Hiccup himself was still designing the floor plan - Tony had insisted that, since Hiccup knew the other Vikings better than him, Hiccup be the one to design the Vikings' living space. Despite Tony's assurance that he could take up as much space as he wanted, Hiccup had opted to stick to only one floor for all of them. That way, he could keep the troublemakers - aka, Snotlout and the twins - close, but give them all separate rooms so that they didn't get in each other's way.

_"Well, I already had a few blueprints for what I wanted to make. It was more a remodelling than anything." _Tony admitted, coming over to Hiccup to inspect his work. _"You know, you can have more than one floor."_

_"I know, but that doesn't mean that giving the twins their own floor is a good idea." _Hiccup reasoned. _"You'd spend more time fixing it than they would living in it."_

Tony shrugged. _"Okay then. You nearly done?"_

Hiccup nodded. _"I haven't really had to change much. None of us know enough about all these new things to have preferences, so I just went with the basics..." _Well, he'd noted that everything was to be fireproof, and added a few bits and pieces for the dragons, but besides that, his room was the only one that wasn't a copy of the default room plan.

_"Cool," _Tony swiped the screen away, sending the information over to where it was needed. _"I'll get onto that once the outside walls are back in place."_

_"How's that going?" _Hiccup knew that there were a few dragons on the job, being led by Toothless as they slotted the new glass panels into place. Apparently, Tony had already taken the suit out and fixed all the supports, which left only a few parts to be put in - work which Hiccup trusted the dragons to complete with ease.

_"Err..." _Tony swiped another screen into existence, bringing up a view of the tower's exterior. _"Pretty well. They'll be done in a few minutes." _Indeed, there were only a few panels left.

_"Did you see what happened earlier?" _Hiccup asked. At Tony's headshake, he continued: _"Astrid was clearing rubble from one of the lower floors, and Stormfly went over to say hello. Next thing I saw was Snotlout being thrown out of the window!"_

Tony laughed, eyes wide. _"Did he... was he okay?"_

_"Oh, yeah," _Hiccup assured flippantly, _"he called for Hookfang - who ignored him as usual - then Stormfly dived after him."_

Tony shook his head, slowly calming down. _"Well, good thing he got caught. Don't want anyone to die falling off Avengers Tower."_

_"Avengers Tower..." _Hiccup repeated.

_"Yeah! That's who's living here, right? So there's no point in calling it Stark Tower anymore. Plus, this way I don't have to replace all those other letters."_

* * *

Fishlegs frowned as the table slowly emptied. Hiccup and Tony had left almost as quickly as they'd arrived, chatting excitedly about inventing and flying. He could've gone with them, he supposed, but he wouldn't have been able to do much - Meatlug really couldn't keep up with Toothless, and he wasn't all that interested in inventing, anyway. Learning about the inventions, sure, but creating them had always been Hiccup's thing.

Astrid and Natasha had been next, leaving with smiles and plans to go and help around the tower. Clint and Snotlout followed soon after, snickering and leaving in, suspiciously, the same direction as the women had left. Honestly, Fishlegs wanted no part in whatever they were trying to start.

Following the twins was a no-go too, simply because they were the twins.

That left Eret and Steve - if he didn't want to spend the day alone - who had stayed behind and didn't seem to have any particular plans.

_"So, you're Vikings?" _Steve said. It was a pathetic attempt at conversation and the man seemed to know it; he cringed slightly as he spoke.

"Yeah," Fishlegs confirmed, "from Berk. Quite a bit different to New York."

_"I can sympathise," _Steve said, sounding almost regretful, _"I was born in the early twentieth century - technically, I'm over ninety years old."_

Fishlegs gaped at the man sat across the table. That was obscenely old, and he looked no older than the adults of Berk - certainly nothing like the elders; Gothi was all wrinkly, nothing like Steve. "So how come you look so..."

_"Young?" _Steve guessed. He laughed dryly. _"I was frozen in ice for about seventy years. Does wonders for the complexion."_

Well, that explained why he could understand the Vikings' predicament. And Tony's nickname - Capsicle, icicle: it made sense. "So, did it change a lot in that time?"

_"I almost didn't recognise it. I don't really understand all this new technology, either."_

"We could work it out together!" Fishlegs suggested.

"How did this place change so much in that time, though?" Eret asked, frowning. "Hiccup said that Berk's been pretty much the same for hundreds of years. Yeah, the dragon pens and fire-prevention is new, but the buildings and equipment are the same as ever."

_"After the discovery of electricity, things started progressing pretty quickly." _Steve explained. _"Even since I got here, there's been constant changes and improvements in technology. It seems there's a new phone model out every week!"_

The joke was lost on the Vikings, who had no idea what phones were. While Cap felt sorry for them - he really did know how they felt, and it wasn't a good feeling - he couldn't help but find it a bit funny. Finally, _he _was the one in the know!

_"Come on," _he said, pushing his stool back and making his way over to the door. _"I'll show you what's been invented in the last thousand years."_

* * *

It wasn't until a few days later that Astrid and Natasha exacted their revenge. That was so that the opposing side would calm down, luring them into a false sense of security. It was also the last day that everyone was going to be living in the shared rooms, as the Avengers' floors were nearing completion - it wasn't surprising that it'd happened so fast, with Tony and Hiccup putting so much effort into it. The two disappeared into the lab after breakfast each morning, resurfacing for the occasional meal or if the coffee machine in the lab stopped working.

That little fact was pivotal to the plan. What they were about to do would undoubtedly make the room unliveable, and neither Astrid nor Natasha were willing to run the risk of the two men having to move into _their _room while theirs was unavailable.

Natasha had spent those few days schooling Astrid on the intricacies of twenty-first century pranking. The first thing she'd been taught about were balloons, which were what they were using today. Well, balloons with a twist.

That twist being water.

Since Snotlout and Clint had taken it upon themselves to fill their room with post-it notes, Astrid and Natasha had decided to fill _their _room with water balloons. It was brilliant, and simple.

And Natasha had managed to acquire over a hundred balloons. They'd been filling them for the past hour now, with some help from Ruffnut (she had stumbled across the balloon stash and refused to leave until Natasha demonstrated them. It hadn't taken long to convince her to join the team).

"Ready?" Astrid checked. Ruffnut nodded. Natasha nodded.

"Clint and Snotlout are currently three floors up, watching television." JARVIS informed them, and they set off.

* * *

After carefully setting the balloons and closing the door firmly behind them, Natasha pulled out another balloon.

_"What's that for?" _Astrid asked, frowning at the new balloon. It was a different colour to all the others, which had been black (that way, it would be less obvious that the balloons contained water, and it was more likely that they would be popped). It was a lovely shade of pink. Natasha winked at her as she blew it up, quickly tying a knot in the end - she was an expert at that now (she hadn't been bad before, but it was hard not to become an expert at something after spending an hour doing pretty much only that) - and pulling out a sharpie.

"It's a message." she explained, drawing a winkey face on the front. "It's only fair that they get a warning, right?"

Astrid grinned, helping secure the balloon to the door.

_"Now what?" _Ruffnut, helpful but entirely impatient, asked.

"Now, we wait."

* * *

Clint chuckled as he stepped away from the first cup. He and Snotlout had decided on their next prank several days ago, and had cleverly waited until the last day the floor was going to be used to carry it out - they didn't want to incur Tony's wrath for ruining it, and this way they wouldn't have to deal with the after-effects themselves.

One down, hundreds to go.

_"This is gonna take _ages," Snotlout complained from his place down the hall. They'd decided to start from either end and work towards the middle, where there was a convenient escape route provided by the ventilation system.

_"What's gonna take ages?"_

Clint startled at the voice, nearly dropping his next cup.

_"Oh, hey Tuff." _Snotlout said casually, letting Clint relax. _God, thought he was Astrid... "We're just putting these cups of water on the floor."_

_"...Why?"_

"This whole corridor is gonna be full of 'em!" Clint explained. "When Astrid and Natasha walk in, they won't be able to get to their room without getting water all over the place."

Tuffnut grinned. _"Awesome."_

_"Hey, where's Ruffnut?" _Snotlout had a point - the lanky male was usually running around with his female twin, causing havoc. _Perfect pranksters..._

_"I dunno. With Astrid?" _Tuffnut scratched his head.

With Astrid? Well, a little sibling rivalry wouldn't go amiss in the prank war. "Hey, why don't you join our team?" Clint suggested. "I bet Ruffnut's with the girls."

Tuffnut nodded, and walked over to Snotlout. The two Vikings started chattering away while they moved the cups into position. _And I'd better start doing it too... _Clint realised, taking another of the plastic cups and setting it down next to the other two.

"Hey, JARVIS, are you sure the girls aren't gonna find us?" Clint checked, looking up to the ceiling questioningly.

"Natasha and Astrid are currently otherwise engaged, three floors above you." If Clint didn't know that the AI was just a computer program, so he couldn't feel emotions - no matter how much Tony insisted otherwise, Clint highly doubted him - he would've thought that JARVIS sounded... amused.

"Do you know how long they'll take?" he asked.

"Long enough for you to place all the cups." Again, JARIVS's computerised tone carried hints of laughter.

That wasn't really a unit of time, but Clint estimated that the task would take around half an hour, now that Tuffnut was helping.

* * *

"Damn you, Natasha." Clint grumbled. He and Snotlout had snuck off after placing the last of the cups - Tuffnut had escaped too, but he'd gone off to find Ruffnut - and were prepared to go back to their room to wait out the girls' anger over their prank. He hadn't expected to return to a balloon in front of his door - he _knew _it was Natasha's doing, if not simply because it was clearly part of a prank, then because of the winkey face drawn on it.

Though, he had to admit, it _was _a lovely shade of pink.

"And you too, JARVIS!" he shouted to the air - Snotlout was probably pretty confused right now, but Clint didn't really care; he'd been tricked! "I thought I could trust you!"

"I helped each team out equally, sir." JARVIS said, in that stupid, mocking, English accented voice.

Clint scowled - totally not a pout - and took the balloon off the door, with perhaps a little more force than was strictly necessary.

_"What's going on?" _Snotlout - poor, innocent, slightly stupid Snotlout - asked.

"We've been pranked." Clint explained shortly, reaching out to the handle and pulling the door ever so slightly.

He cringed. Nothing had happened - yet. He opened the door a crack, putting his face right up to it to see what was inside.

_Oh shit._

"Water balloons."

_"What does that mean?"_

"All of our stuff is going to get very, very wet if I open this door..."

_"Oh." _Snotlout didn't seem that upset. _"Why are you looking at me like that? Berk is an island, pretty much everything gets wet at some point."_

Cursing the Viking's luck - Snotlout might not mind soaked possessions, but Clint did - Clint swung the door back - _j__ust like ripping off a plaster... - _and was immediately faced with a mass of black balloons, all rushing forwards and landing around him. They splashed on the floor, sending water all over the place. Clint didn't bother to duck away, he just stood there with a reigned expression, even as one exploded upon contact with his head.

For all his talk of not being bothered, Snotlout had yelped - he had a very high-pitched yelp, actually - and jumped out of the way. It did nothing to save him from the rush of water, but it _was _pretty funny.

The girls had got them good. But they'd got the girls even better.

* * *

"Okay, so maybe they won this time." Natasha admitted. Simply opening the door to the corridor had knocked over quite a few of the cups, so the floor was already soaked. "Any idea how we're going to get past this?"

Of course, the cups were positioned just close enough that, for all their agility, neither of them would be able to get past without knocking one over. Unless they wanted to spend the next few hours moving cups, they had to think of something.

Astrid frowned, looking at the cups thoughtfully. _"What if we..."_ she said slowly, then stopped abruptly. Natasha looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to continue.

She hadn't predicted Astrid opening her mouth and making a strange call, much like the ones Hiccup used when he was chatting with his dragon. _So, she speaks Dragonese too._

Sure enough, Stormfly appeared not long later, flying low down the corridor. Astrid made more of the strange sounds, and then jumped on the dragon's back. _"She'll get us to our room." _Astrid explained. _"The corridor might get wet, but we won't."_

In that case, perhaps Clint and Snotlout's prank hadn't been that successful, after all.

* * *

"Hey, Bruce, little help?"

Bruce looked over to Tony, and had to stifle a laugh. Somehow, he'd managed to get himself trapped under a massive hug from one of the dragons - Meatlug, he assumed, being as her rider had described her as a hugger. "I'll be right over, just wait a minute." He put down the alarm clock - quite why so much detail had to go into these new rooms, he wasn't sure - and walked over to the dragon.

Helping out was easier said than done, since Meatlug was one of the heavier dragons. There was no way that Bruce would be able to get her to budge - not without 'Hullking out' - he didn't really like Tony's phrase for it, but it stuck.

"Nope, she's there to stay..." Bruce said.

"Ah. Hiccup!"

"Yes?" Hiccup popped his head around the door, holding a tin of paint - most of the contents of which currently resided in his hair.

"Get this guy off me!"

Hiccup proceeded to make a strange, guttural sound that neither Tony nor Bruce understood. Meatlug grumbled in protest, but Hiccup made a sterner demand, and the dragon lazily flapped her wings and lifted off Tony.

"Ah, I can _breathe _again!" Tony exclaimed, stretching out and enjoying his newfound freedom.

"That's a bit dramatic," Bruce laughed, "you were only trapped for a minute."

"A minute that felt like an _hour!" _Tony responded, pressing a hand against his head and pretending to swoon. "It was _terrible!"_

Hiccup shook his head. "What were you even doing?"

"Putting in those little baskets. You know, the stuff you find in hotels!" Hiccup frowned at Tony's words, and Bruce got the impression that Hiccup _didn't _know. He probably didn't even know what a hotel was. "No? Huh. Well anyway, what were _you _doing - why are you covered in paint?"

"I was decorating my room!"

"Decorating _and _inventing? We should start a company! Science Bros: Home Decorators!"

Bruce laughed at the mental image. "You already _have _a company." he reminded the billionaire. "And what's with the science bros?"

"I didn't tell you?" Bruce nearly stated laughing again at Tony's utterly confused expression. "Oh, yeah, I didn't. It's totally our team name!"

Bruce rolled his eyes. "Why do we need team names?"

"If anything JARVIS has told me about what the others are getting up to is true, we're gonna be pulled into a prank war at some point." It was Hiccup who replied. "At the moment its girls versus boys, but Eret, Fishlegs and Steve aren't playing yet."

"Well, they need team names too, then!" Tony grinned. "Team Scary and Team Stupid, how about that?"

"Good way to get yourself killed," Hiccup said, "but good team names? Not so much."

Tony's head hung exaggeratedly, and he snapped his fingers while swinging them across his chest. "Well, snap. And I thought they were gonna love them!"

Natasha would love that name when hell froze over, in Bruce's - quite correct - opinion.

"Anyway," Bruce said pointedly, hoping to change the topic before it ended in Tony getting thrown out of a window, "have you nearly finished painting?"

"Oh, yeah." Hiccup said, glancing towards the door. "You wanna see?"

"Yeah!" And Bruce had succeeded; Tony was now distracted by the prospect of seeing Hiccup's art. "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

* * *

"Whoa..."

Tony was thoroughly impressed. When Hiccup had said that he was decorating his room, Tony had envisioned a few painted walls, maybe a bit of wallpaper, or a pattern. What he hadn't expected was a painting - a proper, work of art painting - that took up the whole room. Well, all of the walls available; one of the walls was made entirely of glass panels, so it wouldn't be a good idea to paint on it.

It was a sky, with clouds left out in white on an otherwise blue background. On the back wall, just above the bed, Hiccup had painted Toothless. It was a sketchy drawing, no smooth lines but still well drawn, with the Night Fury curving into a dive. Hiccup was sat on his back, wearing his full flight suit.

"It's cool and all," Tony said dismissively, "but where's _me?"_

Hiccup had predicted that response. "You're there." he said, pointing to a speck of red and gold in the distance.

"So far ahead of you that you can barely see me? Yeah, sounds like me!" Tony grinned - _tak__e that, Hiccup, I'm making it a draw!_

* * *

"Hey, JARVIS?"

"Yes, Astrid?" the AI responded. Astrid still thought it strange - slightly creepy, actually - that there was, for lack of a better explanation, a man in the ceiling that knew pretty much everything, but she was getting used to it, she thought.

"You're the one that controls the translators, right?"

Beside her, Natasha grinned. _"That's great!" _she said, rubbing her hands together. _"They'll never know what hit them!"_

"That is correct." JARVIS confirmed evenly. Even if he was a computer program, which was apparently something which didn't really have independent thought, Astrid was pretty sure that he too understood what Astrid was hinting at. And he approved.

"So, could you... alter the translations?"

Natasha's grin was positively devilish now.

"What do you want it translated as?"

* * *

Clint and Snotlout were sat in one of the spare rooms - their own was still soaked, and they weren't too keen on the idea of sitting in a damp room - trying to plan out a new prank.

_"We could do something with food,"_ Clint suggested, _"like, I don't know... ketchup-filled doughnuts?"_

"That sounds great!" Snotlout agreed, though he actually had no idea what ketchup was, and he wasn't entirely sure about the doughnuts, either. (A nut made out of dough? Didn't sound all too appetising, really.)

Clint looked at him strangely. _"Natasha is the best; I love her."_

What was he on about? "Totally knew it!" he grinned, "What's that got to do with the prank?"

Again, Clint was looking at him with an odd expression. It contained confusion, mostly, and perhaps a touch of concern. _What's he concerned about? I'm the great Snotlout - nothing wrong with me!_

_"You've been pranked, boys."_

Well, that explained that. The girls had done something to JARVIS! Or perhaps the traitor really _had _defected over to the other team... Snotlout was going to have to find the man hidden in the ceiling - he knew that he was there somewhere, even if the poor guy himself didn't realise it - and beat some sense into him, just in case.

_"My name is Legolas. I'm a princess."_

Not a very astute observation, but Clint's expression showed what he was really - probably - trying to say.

_For Thor's sake._

* * *

It was one of those rare occasions where everyone actually turned up to eat together. While it wasn't uncommon for a few people - mainly Astrid and Natasha - to come and join the communal meal times, it was a rarity to see Tony, Bruce or Hiccup emerge from the lab. Even though they'd finished decorating the individual floors, and everyone had moved in, they were still finding new things to work on.

Eret didn't mind, exactly, that there were often only a few people present to appreciate the cooking - a task that fell to him, Fishlegs and Steve on most days - but he preferred the days when everyone was present.

Today was an exceptionally rare occasion; someone had volunteered to help out with the cooking. Clint came down just as they were starting their task, and immediately got roped in. He didn't seem too begrudging of it though. Eret couldn't tell if he was just bored, or he'd actually wanted to be there.

The dish of the day was an ever-so-healthy pizza. Or several pizzas, since there were so many people eating. And, sure, the preparation of the meal had involved calling up the nearest place that did deliveries, but that still counted as cooking, in Eret's opinion. And they'd made a dessert, anyway, so they _had _cooked, thank you very much.

Speaking of which, Clint was bringing the dessert out now. Not so much a dessert as a collection of random sweet treats, but it was the best way to sample a lot of the food from this universe in a short time. Today was doughnuts and oreos, an idea courtesy of Clint.

_"Here ya go."_ Clint slid the tray onto the table, revealing the sugary foods. Tony clapped his approval.

"I'm not eating anything that _you _served up." Astrid said, eyes narrowed and arms folded. Her suspicion was clearly a product of the 'prank war' that had been waging for the past week.

Oh well, more for those who weren't caught up in their suspicions.

Eret took one of the doughnuts first, and _oh Thor what _is _this it tastes terrible! _He spat it straight back out, and - was Clint _laughing? _Well, point to Astrid for correctly identifying the threat. "What did you _do _to it?"

_"Just added a bit of ketchup instead of jam. Bet it tastes great, doesn't it?"_

That was it, Eret decided as Clint and Snotlout exchanged high-fives. He was going to start his own team - Fishlegs and Steve wouldn't protest too greatly at the chance to get them back for ruining the food - and prank them so hard they wouldn't know what hit them.

Just as soon as he'd got the taste of this... ketchup... out of his mouth.

* * *

_"Hey, Hiccup, how'd you like a trip to Malibu?"_

_"What?" _Hiccup looked up from his latest project - okay, so it was less of a project and more JARVIS telling him what would and wouldn't kill him as he added random chemicals to the beakers he'd been given, but he was writing the results down, and that (Tony assured him) made it science.

_"Malibu. You know, the place where my second house is?"_

_"You have a second house?"_ Hiccup gawped at the billionaire in disbelief; no one on Berk had ever had two homes (though it could be argued that the forge was a second home to Gobber and Hiccup).

_"I have a second everything." _Tony countered. _"Actually," _he continued, after a beat of silence, _"perhaps not a second _everything..."

_"What were you saying about a trip to Malibu?" _Hiccup tried to get the conversation back on track, not at all looking forwards to finding out which direction Tony's speech was about to derail in.

_"Oh, yeah!" _Thank the gods, Tony took the bait. _"I have a few projects and stuff back there that I want to move to the tower. Do you want to help?"_

Get to explore more of the universe and see more crazy experiments? _"Sounds great. When do we leave?"_

* * *

**That marks the end of the 'getting to know you' bit of the plot. Well, the end of it being the main plotline. The prank war is going to be a continuous thing, I think.  
And, about the superpowers: yeah, they're not going to be in this fic. Sorry. I might write another where it does happen, but it's better without it here.  
****So, thoughts on the characterisation? And, possibly, what you think is going to happen next?**


	5. A Little Movie Called the Party's Over

**A/n: here's the kinda-midweek update! This one has a lot less POV changes in. It's also longer than I realised: like, 6000 words!**

* * *

As eager as Tony had been to show Hiccup the amazing 'airport' of New York, he eventually decided that it perhaps wasn't his _best _idea - though it was by no means his worst - since they probably wouldn't allow dragons onto planes.

So instead, Tony took his suit - most of his things were at Malibu anyway, so luggage wasn't a problem - and Hiccup rode on Toothless.

_"Why do you have two homes?" _Hiccup asked, half an hour into the journey and just starting to become aware of the awkward silence settling between them - it wasn't _his _fault he'd been too caught up in doing small tricks to notice.

_"Because I'm rich?" _Tony said. It sounded more like a question to Hiccup - _does he really not know why he did it? _"I wanted a place in New York, and hey, why not go all out and make it a tower, if you're gonna do it you gotta do it big right? It's a pretty crowded city anyway, not much room for a proper mansion like Malibu, so building up was really the only option..."

By this point, Hiccup gave up listening to Tony's rambling and decided to let him finish rattling off his house-building logic on his own.

_"How long is it supposed to take?" _Hiccup asked, interrupting Tony in the middle of a heated debate he was now having with himself, the topic of which being the pros and cons of sheep ownership. Hiccup didn't know how the man got to that from building towers, and, quite frankly, he didn't _want _to know.

Tony startled out of his reverie. _"I don't know... a few hours? I've never flown over in the suit..."_

Ah, great. _Well, _Hiccup thought, relaxing back against Toothless and stroking him lazily, _this should be interesting._

* * *

"There it is, just up ahead!" Tony called out, turning to look for Hiccup. He was mildly surprised when he didn't see the Viking, but significantly less so than he had been the first five times. "What is it this time?" he asked jokingly, "Did you 'fall' and start using the wings? Are you clinging on to Toothless's belly?"

"Nope!" Hiccup's voice rang out, cheeky as it had been since he'd started his game and closer than Tony had been expecting. _Oh, tell me he didn't._

"JARVIS, is there someone hanging onto the suit?"

"Yes, sir." Tony could've kicked the AI, if only he wasn't an AI, for his amused - _amused! _At_ him! - _tone. He could almost see the smirk on the imaginary British butler's face. Why had he programmed him with so much sass?

"I'm taking that sass out when we get to Malibu." Tony warned.

"Of course, sir." the AI responded, knowing full well that Tony had no real intention of doing so. Just because it was true, didn't mean that he could be so annoying about it.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, noticing the weight now that it was gone and Hiccup had dropped back onto his dragon's back.

"Mister Haddock asked me not to." JARVIS replied. Tony sent a glare back to the Viking that he was sure wouldn't be seen - it didn't matter; it made him feel better, anyway. And how exactly had Hiccup managed to ask JARVIS. He didn't have anything to communicate with him with. Did he? Unless he was still wearing that translator - it looked like he was, as revealed by a quick look backwards.

"What's just up ahead, anyway?" Hiccup asked, pulling Tony out of his chat with the AI.

"Malibu." Tony explained. "And as punishment for your little stunt there, I'm not giving you your surprise until you've met Pepper."

"Surprise?" Hiccup asked hopefully. Tony laughed; this was the first time he'd mentioned it, actually. Quite good, knowing his penchant for revealing secrets on a whim - _I am Iron Man, _anyone_?_

"Yeah, a surprise you won't be getting until you meet Pepper." Tony repeated. Hiccup pouted, and the genius smirked. "That's what you get for pulling stunts like that." he explained happily.

Hiccup grumbled for a bit, but he soon stopped - probably realising how much of a child he was being, if Tony had to guess, or perhaps his dragon let him know on his behalf (he'd seen them talking in Dragonese - which he still had to learn, come to think of it) - and spent the remaining duration of the flight in silence.

"Who _is _Pepper?" Hiccup asked once they landed, patting Toothless while Tony took the suit off.

Tony smirked, seeing Pepper herself walking up to greet them behind Hiccup's back as the suit panels retracted into the briefcase formation. He motioned to her.

"I'm Pepper." she said, startling Hiccup. "And you are?"

Oh, dang. Tony _knew _he'd forgotten to mention something when he was telling Pepper that he was coming back to Malibu. How he managed to not mention the Viking and dragon duo that would be accompanying him, he had _no_ idea. "This is Hiccup," Tony explained, "a Viking from another universe that followed me back through the wormhole. Oh, and his dragon, Toothless."

Toothless gave a short rumble of a greeting, and it was Pepper's turn to startle, as she noticed the dragon. She recovered quickly, though: "I'm Pepper," she introduced, "Tony's girlfriend."

Tony beamed, and Hiccup looked about to make a sarcastic remark, when Pepper continued. "Which gives me the right to do something like _this!" _As she talked, she'd approached Tony and slapped him full on the face. _What? But -_ While Tony stood, dumbstruck, Pepper glared at him. "What were you _thinking, _flying through that portal? I saw it on the news, you - I thought you _died, _Tony!"

"In my defence," Tony said evenly - because, if he was being honest, he couldn't say that he hadn't expected this to happen. "I called you as I went through. So, I was planning on _telling _you, at least."

That stole some of Pepper's thunder. "I didn't notice..." she said, looking up at him sadly.

"Uh..." Hiccup saved the day with his awkwardness - Tony was going to give the kid a prize, one even better than the surprise he had waiting for him downstairs. "I've met Pepper now, so, can I have my surprise?"

Tony grinned and slapped him on the back, causing the one-legged Viking to stumble - how weedy was he, that something like _that _almost knocked him over? "Sounds like a plan! Well, I'll leave you to your CEO-ing, Pepper," Pepper nodded, only slightly annoyed still, "and we'll go down to the lab."

"Make sure you come out of the lab in good time." Pepper warned, as she walked over to the waiting car - _did I make her late? Whoops. - _and climbed in. Happy shut the door behind her, and, with a slight wave to Tony, he slipped in on the other side and drove off.

"Who was that?" Hiccup asked as the car disappeared round the corner.

"Happy." Tony explained. "Good Viking name, eh? He's kinda a chauffer, but I think I drive him to places more than he drives me."

Hiccup continued looking over at the spot the two new - to him - people had left from for a second. He shrugged and turned to the mansion behind him. "So, the lab?"

* * *

Tony's lab - as Hiccup soon discovered - was much the same as his one in the tower. It was perhaps a bit bigger, and it took up the space under the building rather than a collection of floors at the top of the tower, but the technology used inside was the same.

Most of the bits of metal scattered around were easily recognisable as suit parts, all in the traditional red and gold._ "You do any other colours?"_ Hiccup asked, _"Anything less flashy than red and gold?"_

_"It's funny you should ask, actually." _Tony said, making his way further into the lab. Hiccup followed, stopping along the way to inspect the bits of armour in various stages of completion - who even needed that many of the same thing? _"As a matter of fact, I do."_

Hiccup stepped through into the next section of the lab. This part had some robots in the corner - he'd heard Tony saying something about them, and wanting to bring them up to the tower. Dummy, he recalled one of them being named - and a large circle of unused floor space. It contrasted the cluttered lab quite obviously; not even pieces of scrap metal had made it onto the area.

Tony pressed a button, and the only clear bit of floor space started to spiral outwards, folding into the rest of the floor to reveal another level, even further down, completely filled with Iron Man suits.

_"How much time do you spend on these?"_ Hiccup asked, awed at the sheer amount of them.

_"Been working on them for about... a year? Maybe more - whenever it was I officially became Iron Man."_

Hiccup nodded, edging closer to the collection of suits. _"Which is the newest?"_

_"Again, a brilliant question,"_ Tony grinned, peering down into the hole. "_and one I_ might _know the answer to. Hey, JARVIS, where's the newest suit?"_

_"JARVIS knowing doesn't count as you knowing." _Hiccup muttered. Tony just laughed.

_"Behind a sheet, sir. I believe you mentioned wanting a 'dramatic reveal'?"_

Tony nodded, walking over to the only covered thing in the lab. _"I hope this is it..."_ he said, tugging on the sheet to uncover the suit. It was smaller than the others, a sleek black one - suddenly Hiccup understood why Tony thought his questions were funny. _"Yep, here's your surprise."_

_"_My _surprise?"_ Hiccup asked, walking over to the suit. Sure enough, it looked about the same size as himself. _"__This is..."_

_"Yours, yep. Now you can fly properly!"_ Tony pressed another button, and the suit's front opened.

_"That's awesome."_ Hiccup decided, reaching out to feel the inside of the suit. _"When can I fly it?"_

* * *

_Looks like an absolute idiot, _Tony laughed to himself, watching as Hiccup flitted uncoordinatedly about in the sky.

"This is harder than expected!" Hiccup shouted, voice coming through the coms, as he started to drop a bit. Tony decided to give him a couple more minutes of fooling around before he stopped videoing it and went over to help. "How do you manage it?"

Toothless, who was floating beside him, growled something. Hiccup shook his head, holding out his hands to achieve mild stability. "Okay, I think I've got the hand of - whoa!"

The power going to the suit increased - and okay, _maybe _Tony was to blame, but he wasn't going to admit it - and Hiccup found himself rocketed higher into the air. "Tony, _help!"_

"Okay, okay," Tony followed the Viking up, noticing that the dragon was doing the same - and how weird was it that he'd started thinking about dragons without finding it odd? Very, Tony decided - "I'll get you. JARVIS, put Hiccup's suit on autopilot."

"Yes, sir." JARVIS said, and Hiccup's suit stopped moving suddenly. It didn't fall, like it had done the last time Hiccup had tried to stop himself, but hovered neatly in the air.

"It's really harder than it looks," Hiccup commented once Tony had a hold on him, "even just to stay still. How do you manage it?"

"I'm just talented like that." Tony joked - no need to let Hiccup know about all the trouble he'd had getting it to work the first time around. "And I've been at it longer." he conceded at Hiccup's silence; the Viking clearly didn't believe him, and it was obvious even through the metal plating covering his face.

"Right..." Hiccup said sceptically. "Well, I'm gonna carry on practising out here. You got anything you need to be doing, or was your plan for the day just to watch me fail?"

"Ha, well, when you put it like that..." Tony started, noticing halfway through the joking remark that he was receiving a call from Happy - honestly, talk about bad timing - "I'd love to stick around, but Happy's calling. See you later!"

* * *

"Hello?" Tony contained the urge to laugh as Happy appeared on the screen. He walked along as the suit disassembled around him, coming to a stop near an office chair that he plonked down into, pushing off in the direction of his desk.

"Is this forehead of security?" he asked jokingly, teasing Happy's lack of knowledge of technology - he was asking for it, really, forgetting where the camera on his pad was.

"What?" Happy said, then moved his head back once he realised his mistake.

"What do you want?" Tony asked. He needed this conversation to be over quickly; Hiccup would likely crash into something and cause quite a bit of damage without him around to stop the suit from careening out of control.

"I'm working; I got something going on here."

"What? Harassing interns?" Tony guessed. Happy frowned at him, so Tony continued - as much as he loved his little chats with Happy, he really did have to get back to Hiccup - "What's going on? Fill me in."

"For real?" Happy asked, and Tony nodded. "Alright, so Pepper's meeting up with this scientist - rich guy, handsome. I couldn't make his face at first, and you know I'm good at faces."

"Oh, yeah, the best." Tony agreed distractedly. While he was down in the lab, he might as well tinker with the latest suit. He'd been halfway through finishing the mark 42 when the New York nonsense had happened, and he was yet to get the chips in that would allow the suit to come to him.

"Yeah, so I ran his credentials. Says he's Aldrich Killian." Tony flinched as he put the first chip in his wrist, pressing cotton wool onto it to stop the bleeding. He grabbed his phone, quickly tapping the provided name into it. "We met the guy back in... where were we in '99? The science conference?"

"Switzerland." Tony responded. Even though he'd been drunk for most of that event, he still remembered most of the details. The face that was staring back at him on the phone screen wasn't a face he recognised.

"Right, exactly."

"I don't remember that guy..." Tony said, giving up trying to remember the face and grabbing the second chip.

"Of course you don't remember, he's not a blonde with a big rack. It was fine at first, just talking business, but it's, like, getting weird." Happy said, glancing up at where the Killian guy presumably was. "He's showing her his big brain."

"Ah," Tony hissed as the second chip went in. "his what?"

"His big brain," Happy repeated. "and she likes it. Here, let me show you... see?"

"See what?" Tony turned his attention back to the screen Happy was now on. He couldn't see anything. There wasn't even anything _to _see.

"You watching them?" Happy checked. Tony frowned.

"No, I can't see them. Just flip the screen so I can." Happy's face reappeared.

"I'm not a tech genius like you." Tony resisted the urge to point out that it didn't take a tech genius like him to work out how to flip a screen. All he had to do was press a button - even Hiccup could work that out, and he hadn't been told how to countless times!

"Flip the screen."

"I don't know how to flip the screen!" Happy hissed. "I don't trust this guy; he's shifty. Got another guy with him."

"Relax." Tony rolled his eyes; this was a waste of time.

"I'm just asking you to secure the perimeter."

"Hate to cut you off," Tony said, glancing over at the various parts of mark 42 scattered around the room, "but do you have your taser?"

"Yeah, why?"

"There's a gal in HR, pretty sure she's trying to steal printer ink. Maybe you should go over there and shock her." he lied, lifting a hand carefully.

"Yeah, okay." Happy said, ending the call.

_Finally. _Tony flicked his wrist out, and the hand of the suit zoomed over to him. He needed to adjust the speed of that.

Maybe Hiccup could survive without him, just for a while.

* * *

Pepper waved Happy off, glad that he was distracted by another person not wearing their badge. "I'm sorry, Killian." she apologised, looking over to her 4:00.

"It's okay." Killian said, while Pepper's mind went into meltdown over the sight of the - vastly different - man she'd used to work with. Once a rather unattractive man with long, scraggly hair and all the physical prowess of a corpse, it was understandably a surprise to see him clean-shaven and confident, with a sharp suit that showed just how much work he'd put into his new appearance. "Please, call me Aldrich."

"Okay, Aldrich." Pepper agreed, opening her door for him and shooing Happy off - he insisted on sticking close, (he was sweet, if a little overbearing, like that) but he didn't follow them into the room. Pepper walked over to her desk and motioned for Aldrich to start his presentation.

"After years of dodging the president's ban on 'immoral biotech research'," The flippant way in which Killian spoke of morality set of alarm bells to Pepper, "my think tank has something in the pipeline, a little idea we like to call Extremis. I'm just gonna turn your lights down," he warned, walking over to the switch to do just that.

"Regard the human brain." Aldrich placed a device on the desk, from which a holograph sprang up. "Oh, wait, hold on. That's - that's the universe," he said with mocked awkwardness, "my bad. But if I do _that..." _he pressed a button, and the view changed, "that's the brain. Strangely mimetic though, wouldn't you say?"

"Wow..." Pepper said, impressed despite her suspicions. _We'll just see how it goes. _"That's amazing."

"Thanks," Killian said casually, "it's mine."

"What?" Pepper couldn't help but say.

"This is..." Killian started, trying to think of the best way to describe it. "You're inside my head." he settled on eventually. "It's a live feed - come on up, I'll prove it to you."

He offered a hand out, which Pepper took after a small hesitation, and the two climbed up onto the desk. Now, she was completely in the hologram, and it looked quite amazing, she had to admit.

"Pinch my arm." Aldrich ordered. Pepper raised an eyebrow at him, but did it. Instantly, the hologram changed to display a flare of colour moving through the nerves in the brain.

"What's that?" Pepper wondered.

"The primary somatosensory cortex." Killian explained. "It's the brain's pain centre. But _this..." _he moved the image with his hands, pointing out a blank space in the middle of the brain. "is what I wanted to show you."

_There it is. _Pepper could tell that the harmless fun was over; this was where the morally questionable activity came in.

"Extremis harnesses out bioelectrical potential. And it goes here. It's essentially an empty spot, which shows us that our mind - our entire DNA - is destined to be upgraded."

She'd totally called it. Not only was he suggesting weaponising humans, but what his use of 'upgraded' reminded her oddly of the emotionless metal-man villains of a show she watched once. "Wow," she said anyway, trying to find the softest way to break the news to him.

"Imagine if you could hack into the hard drive of any living organism and recode its DNA."

That's where she was drawing the line. "It sounds incredible." she agreed, "Unfortunately, it also sounds highly weaponisable. As in advanced soldiers, private armies, and Tony's not -"

"Tony, Tony." And there came the new method of convincing: smooth talk. It was a shame that Aldrich didn't seem to know that she and Tony actually saw eye to eye on many a moral issue, regarding science, and this was one of them. "You know, I invited Tony to join AIM. But something tells me there's a new genius on the throne, now, who doesn't have to answer to Tony anymore."

The use of genius really gave it away. "It's going to have to be a no, Aldrich, as much as I'd like to help you." It was, honestly, such a shame that he hadn't spent the time working on his creepiness issues rather than his attractiveness ones.

Aldrich frowned. He and Pepper walked over to the door, which she opened and motioned for him to leave.

"I'm sure I'll see you again, Pepper."

Somehow, Pepper found that goodbye just a little bit creepy.

* * *

Hiccup and Tony had only left the tower that morning, and already Bruce was getting roped into helping with the ongoing prank war. It was quite irritating, actually, that he had to be dragged away from his experiments, but at least he was getting some time outside the lab.

"You know, Tony thinks you should get team names." Bruce said, looking over to Natasha.

The Black Widow looked at him for a moment, then grinned. "And what did he propose we be called?"

"Uh... Team Scary, at first," Bruce admitted. "as a top-of-his-head idea."

Natasha scoffed. "And what, Team Stupid for the other guys?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." Bruce said, impressed. "Personally, I think the Bird-Brains would be better, but each to their own..."

Natasha smiled, shaking her head. "If you asked Clint, he'd probably just say 'Team Awesome', so your name's as good as any - better, actually."

Bruce nodded agreement. "Back onto what you want me to do..." he said, playing with the bottle in his hands, "Why does it have to be me?"

"It doesn't." Natasha explained. "I just knew you hadn't left the lab in ages." She took the bottle from his hands and stood up. "Well, you should be seeing the results of this particular prank any time now. So look out for that."

"I will." Bruce promised, pushing himself up and walking off, mind already returning to his experiments and their results.

* * *

_"And you toss it like... this!" _Astrid explained, punctuating her sentence with an axe throw. Natasha watched it soar in a spiral, jamming neatly into the test dummy.

"I've never seen weaponry that old being used before," she admitted, rather impressed with the way the blade stuck into the plastic. "even Clint's arrows are new compared to that."

"They're new compared to _everything." _Clint pointed out from his place across the room. One of the spies' suggestions had been a proper training room, and Tony had seen fit to include a state of the art firing range (with some traditional archery targets over in a corner as a jab at Clint's weapon of choice) - "The stuff Tony did to it is _awesome."_

"Yeah, maybe you should thank him for them." Natasha shot back.

"I _would, _but he's off with his girlfriend. I thought we agreed to leave him alone for a bit?"

"That was _before _we knew that Hiccup was tagging along." Natasha muttered, but didn't argue back. They _had _made a unanimous decision to avoid pestering Tony as much as possible. Not that they'd need to - with all the systems in place in the tower, they didn't even need to leave, and the Vikings hadn't been shown the magic of long-range communication yet.

_"Hey, how 'bout we have a spar?" _Snotlout asked Natasha, wiggling his eyebrows and nudging his elbow towards her.

"Okay." she replied evenly, wasting no time in grabbing the Viking's arm and twisting it so that he fell to the ground. The effectiveness of that little move had been explained to her by Astrid, and she finally thanked her for it - it really did work excellently.

As Snotlout bemoaned his lack of luck with the ladies from his place on the floor, Natasha went over to retrieve the axe. "So, you just toss it?"

_"There's a bit more to it than that, but it's best to have a try yourself." _Astrid corrected. _"Now, what about this... widow's bite?"_

"My specialised weapon." Natasha grinned. "You can test it on Snotlout, if you like."

Astrid grinned. Natasha assumed that she'd realised that, if the weapon was going to be tested out on Snotlout, it was probably a painful one. _"Hey Snotlout, hold this." _she invited, holding out the small device.

_"Oh, cool. What is it?" _he asked, grabbing it. Astrid laughed as Snotlout triggered the weapon, sending a powerful jolt of electricity through him.

"A widow's bite." Natasha explained as Snotlout dropped to the floor for the second time. "You like it?"

"Uh... will he be okay?" Clint asked, jogging over after hearing Snotlout's surprised shout of pain.

Snotlout sat up, dazed, and said something so incomprehensible that JARVIS couldn't translate.

_"He says he's already fine." _Tuffnut explained. At Natasha and Clint's looks, he explained: _"He's been hit by lightning loads of times, so we can understand him when he's like this."_

_"And yet you can't be bothered to learn Dragonese..." _Astrid muttered.

Snotlout tried to say something again. _"He's gonna go have a shower," _Tuffnut translated. _"so that he looks even better than usual."_

_"Huh, that means he'll still look ugly." _Ruffnut chimed in from next to her twin, giving Snotlout a punch to the arm as he walked past.

At the mention of showers, Clint decided he might as well have one of his own, and followed his Viking friend. Tuffnut and Ruffnut followed after, leaving the two girls alone in the room.

_Showers? _Natasha shared a grin with Astrid. _Brilliant._

* * *

Tony had left Hiccup to his own devices some time ago. During that time, Hiccup had managed to get - in his opinion - a quite nice control over the suit. By which he meant he could go a minute without crashing into the water.

Needless to say that his crash course in operating flying armour had left him soaked, because apparently Tony could make suits fly and shoot weird laser blasts, but he'd be damned if he ever tried to make it _waterproof, _oh, no.

_'Bet I could go faster than you in this thing.' _Hiccup grinned over at Toothless, who was - predictably - thoroughly affronted by the statement. Or he pretended to be, at least.

_'Not at the rate you're working it out,' _the Night Fury shot back, _'I've seen hatchlings with better flight control than you!'_

_'Excuse me!' _Hiccup yelled with mock indignation, _'I'll have you know that my grace in the air is unparalleled!'_

_'Yeah, 'cause no one else could ever be as bad as you!' _Toothless grinned. Hiccup shook his head, slowly so that he didn't lose concentration on staying upright and take another early bath. He figured that if he continued at the rate he was going, he'd actually be able to control the suit enough to be mildly competent in an hour or so.

_'You say that, but do you really think that _Snotlout _would be better than me?'_

_'... Fair enough.'_

* * *

Happy knew that Tony was sceptical of his claims. He couldn't really fault the man for it - he hadn't been there in person, so he hadn't had the opportunity to feel that quite frankly creepy aura that seemed to radiate off him. But that didn't make it any less annoying that he'd been so thoroughly ignored. Perhaps if he hadn't been so tight on security recently, he would've been taken seriously, but this just proved that he'd been right to be suspicious.

The man who hadn't had his visitor pass on view was walking up to a bench, just a few metres away from where Happy was standing. Happy spotted a stand not far away selling sunglasses, and walked over as casually as possible.

He grabbed a pair and pretended to try it on in the available mirror, adjusting it so he could see what was happening behind him. There was another man on the bench, equally suspicious and clearly in cahoots with the no-pass man.

Happy had to hide a grin as a case was passed between the two - he was so good at this spying thing - and he watched the two start a conversation. It was real typical spy movie stuff, and Happy'd watched enough of those to know what was going to happen next. So, he turned round and headed over there.

Sure enough, the man on the bench was checking the contents of his case - the other man had left, but it didn't matter too much if he could just get his hands on whatever they'd just traded.

By the time he'd marched over there, the man was already ready to leave. Apparently, whatever he'd wanted was there, and he was now in a hurry to get it out of a public place. Happy wasn't happy, exactly, to see such a potentially dangerous exchange - especially when at least one of those involved was involved in Stark Industries - but he couldn't help but feel a sense of smugness, knowing that he'd been right and Tony had been wrong. After all, it wasn't often that the genius was outsmarted.

He applied the trick he'd seen on a show once, walking into the man as he stood up. The two stumbled slightly as they collided, and the case fell, contents spilling out - how lucky it was that he'd managed to get in before the case was properly closed.

"Ah, sorry," Happy said, as excited as he was nervous - he was doing something seriously awesome - "I'll help you get those, here..."

The brown-haired man didn't notice as one of the parts - a flash drive? It looked like one - slipped from his possession into Happy's. The two parted quickly, each as eager to leave as the other, and Happy turned the small metal object over in his hands as he walked off.

"What are you doing, buddy?" Ah, poo. Happy turned round and found himself face to face with the bald man. So much for a clean escape.

"Just going," he shot back, not about to be intimidated so easily, "I was having a nice evening."

"A little date night?" the man replied, almost challengingly. "Seeing your favourite chick flick?"

"Yeah, a little movie called the party's over," - Happy really was getting good at the sassy talk - "starring you and your girlfriend. Here's the ticket." Happy held the flash drive up between his fingers.

The man smirked, challenging Happy. Not one to disappoint, he swung a fist out at him. It was a good hit, getting the other squarely in the nose with a satisfying crack. He'd be feeling that one later, and now.

Or perhaps not, Happy realised, as the man turned back round. His face was... glowing? The challenging smugness hadn't left his eyes, and he grinned wickedly at Happy's shock as his wound - and it was definitely bleeding, possibly bruised in places - disappeared before his eyes.

_What?_

There wasn't much time to question the impossibility of the situation, as Happy found himself caught up in the impossible man's grip. He struggled against it, to no avail.

By now, plenty of people had noticed the budding fight. Happy was pleased to note that most of them were taking the opportunity to get out of there; he wasn't sure how safe the area would be, if things continued escalating at this rate.

Not at all was the answer, discovered while in mid-air as Happy was tossed away and into the stand he'd been using as his mirror just a minute ago.

He was bleeding now, and a bit disoriented, but that didn't stop him pushing himself up and crawling to the edge of the stand, poking his head round enough to see the two men from the exchange.

The one he'd knocked down was now on the floor, crawling just as he was, and he was glowing. Not like the other had been, in a small, controlled manner, but in a way disturbingly similar to the effect used in cartoons when someone was enraged - the type that usually ended in the character blowing up, and, though it was a comedic effect in the cartoon, Happy was pretty sure that it was nowhere near as funny in real life.

A few words were exchanged between the two, before the one who wasn't about to become a living cartoon turned, walking away with a confident calm that he'd managed to keep up throughout the entire exchange.

The other, red faced and desperate, looked up as his last hope walked off. Even his pupils were glowing now, and Happy realised through the confusion of his fall that there was no time to get away. The man was yelling out, and Happy ducked away behind the stand just as the screaming cut out.

Heat exploded everywhere. A coat of flame billowed out, licking the edges of the stand and melting it away easily. It was contained in the little plaza, curling back in on itself as it reached the main street and dissipating as quickly as it had appeared.

Happy, singed and bleeding and lying on his back in a slowly descending mist of ash, turned his gaze - using the entirety of his now-limited range of movement to do so - to the man, or, what was left of him. So, not much. The ground where he'd been was glowing red, and _dear god, he melted the pavement..._

The tags the man had had were on the ground, still intact but a bit burnt up. Happy reached out a trembling hand, only able to point at them weakly.

Something shifted in the rubble. The man - the impossible man with his impossible healing - had survived. Half his leg had been burned off, but a new one was already reconstructing using the red glow that had just killed someone else - and how was he controlling that, anyway? - and this sort of thing must happen to him often because he wasn't even fazed. Happy watched in horrified wonder as the other man stepped out into the street, leg intact but missing the bottom of his suit trousers, put a piece of gum in his mouth and wandered off, leaving Happy to black out on the floor in the middle of the rubble.

* * *

**Poor Happy... and poor everyone else, once we properly get into the IM3 plot. Congrats to LYH for being the first and only person to guess.  
Do you think there's too little of the people in the tower?  
(There were less reviews for last chapter. Don't stop reviewing! Reviews are motivation and joy!)**


	6. 1880, Malibu Point

**A/n: sorry for taking a bit longer to write this! (Motivation equalled zero, so writing equalled zero.) ****This chapter is more Tony and Hiccup centric, again. Don't worry, though: the next one is almost entirely in the POV of those back at the tower, and Tony and Hiccup might not be making an appearance at all. So, there'll be stuff from the tower anyway, but they aren't in the plan for the IM3 stuff (not yet, anyway, I'm a bit undecided on that one.)**

* * *

For the second time that night, Tony woke up in a cold sweat. Part of him still felt betrayed that Pepper had just rushed out, when he was still panicked and shaking and _oh god the wormhole he was gonna die. _That part of him was being squashed down quite violently by the overwhelming sense that something terribly bad had just happened.

The collapsed parts of the mark 42 were still scattered around the room, making it hard for Tony to make his way around them and try to reach the door. He had to do something - what, he wasn't quite sure. Go and build another suit, maybe. Make those adjustments to the new suit.

_"Tony?" _A bleary eyed Viking stepped into view, pausing to yawn. _"What are you... oh - _what are you doing up?"

Rather than question the Viking's own sleeping patterns, Tony grabbed Hiccup and pulled him through into the room. "Couldn't sleep." he explained tersely. "Do you get the feeling that something's... wrong?"

"Uh..." Hiccup looked at Tony appraisingly, doubtlessly taking in his dishevelled appearance and the suit remains littering the floor. "Not... really. I'm guessing you do?"

Tony was about to answer when the phone rang. _Knew it, _he thought, springing over to accept the call.

Hiccup watched Tony's expression carefully as the person on the other end spoke. He couldn't make out their words, but from his friend's expression, he was guessing that it wasn't good news. Not that good news ever came from a call in the early hours of the morning, but still...

"What is it?" Hiccup asked after a few seconds of silence. Tony nodded dumbly, letting the phone drop to the floor as the call ended. He stared at Hiccup.

"There was an explosion. Happy's in the hospital."

* * *

Hiccup had never really met Happy properly, but he dutifully followed Tony to the hospital to meet him, anyway. Pepper had already left for work - apparently she and Tony had had a falling out, something to do with the disassembled suit on the floor - so Tony would be alone otherwise. Unfortunately, since they were going to a public place, Hiccup had had to leave Toothless in the mansion. And he had to wear 'normal' clothes, which meant that he was wearing a black jacket over his usual t-shirt, and jeans - not helpful for making him feel more at ease, and he couldn't help but shift uncomfortably whenever he thought of his current attire.

_"Hey," _Hiccup said as Tony concentrated on parking the car - there were so many modes of transport, it really was ridiculous. And apparently he hadn't even scratched the surface with those he'd seen so far - _"how do you manage to have JARVIS in so many places?"_

_"He's been installed in all of them." _Tony explained, _"They're technically different AIs, since they run on different information, but every so often they all share the new data so they can stay linked."_

_"Huh." _That was pretty cool, actually. The car came to a smooth stop in front of the building, and Tony got out. Hiccup followed, leg nearly catching on the car door and then his own trousers, and hurried into the building. _"Why'd we park so close?" _he asked, noticing that all the other cars seemed to have a designated area a few metres away.

_"The press will be swarming the place by the time we leave. Might as well make the journey as short as possible to avoid them a bit."_

Hiccup nodded, letting Tony walk up to the front desk and announce himself. The woman working there clearly recognised him, startling when she looked up and hurrying to get him what he wanted.

_"The perks of being famous." _Tony whispered to Hiccup - as if he didn't know about that, being the chief of an island. Though, the perks of that were probably outweighed by the ridiculous workload.

Soon enough they were ushered over to the correct room. Hospitals, Hiccup decided on the journey over, were definitely not his favourite places in the world. They were ridiculously sterile, with stark white walls and an overall grim atmosphere. Just seeing Happy lying in the hospital bed probably made him look deathly ill - Hiccup had seen (probably experienced) wounds worse than that, and simply being in a more homely setting made them look less bad than Happy's did now.

Tony watched the unconscious man for a while, perched on the end of the bed. The TV provided enough background noise for Hiccup to not get the urge to talk the awkwardness away.

After five minutes of standing and staring at the unresponsive man, Tony suddenly stood up. _"We should go." _he said decisively. Hiccup shrugged and followed the man back through the corridors, wondering as they went how they hadn't got lost yet - everything looked the exact same - until they managed to reach the entrance.

_"So... the 'press' are going to be out there?" _Hiccup checked, not exactly sure what the press was. Had he been told about it before? Probably not, given the look of understanding on Tony's face.

_"They're a group of people who go and find stuff out, so they can tell people the news." _Tony supplied. _"Not that great though, being as they're really invasive and they usually just print lies anyway."_

Hiccup tilted his head in a shrug - sounded like a professional rumour mill - then copied Tony's posture as he walked outside. He was immediately faced with flashes, coming from everywhere and blinding him. Tony wasn't bothered by it, he just gave a forced smile and continued forwards.

_"Tony!" _sounded, followed by a barrage of different questions. Hiccup caught people asking who he was, people asking who he was going to see. Tony continued, seemingly unfazed, until one man asked: _"Do you have anything to say to the Mandarin?"_

_Mandarin? _Hiccup had heard that used once, when Steve was talking. Wasn't that a type of orange?

_"Here's a personal message for him." _Apparently the word meant something different to Tony - either that or he was getting very dramatic about a fruit. _"I'm not afraid of you. I know you're a coward, and I've just decided: you're dead. I'm gonna collect the body."_

Hiccup had seen threats like this issued. More often than not, they never got carried out. _"In case you _are _a man, here's my home address: 1880 Malibu point, 90265. I'll leave the door unlocked."_

The press, who had previously been silent to catch Tony's words on tape, started up their questioning again. _"That's what you wanted, right?" _Tony checked, then grabbed the man's phone and tossed it against the wall. He ducked back into the car then, giving Hiccup the signal to do the same. The press's calls dulled down when the doors shut, and Tony drove off as they scrambled to follow.

_"I'm not an expert," _Hiccup said once enough time had passed for Tony to calm down, _"but isn't telling the bad guy where you live a bad idea?"_

Tony looked at him for a second, as if he'd forgotten the exchange with the press already. _"I did that, didn't I?"_

Hiccup nodded.

_"Well, shit."_

* * *

"What are we supposed to do now?" Tony Stark wasn't panicking. Nope. Totally calm, chilled out, relaxed. Nothing like the threat of a terrorist attack on your home to give you a sense of tranquillity, really.

"Start trying to take this guy down before he gets to you?" Hiccup suggested, then winced. "Actually, no. Uh, defend this place. What do you have in the way of defence, anyway?"

There was a story behind that change in tactic, and Tony would be damned if he didn't get to hear it. For now, though, he had to concentrate on the terrorist threat. "Other than the suits... not much. And we can't just start shooting everything that enters our airspace; the press have helicopters, too."

Ah, the press. The reason any of this crazy stuff was even happening. _Thanks, random guy. _Tony suddenly felt that his phone-trashing was more than justified. He wasn't even going to pay the guy back for it, in fact (_might not even be alive to,_ he purposefully didn't think).

"Back to Plan A, then." Hiccup said. "What have you got on this orange guy?"

_Mandarin, oranges... amazing._

"JARVIS?"

"The name is an ancient Chinese war mantle, meaning 'advisor to the king'." JARVIS supplied. "Sir, might I suggest you contact SHIELD to -"

"And have them laughing at me for pulling a stunt as stupid as this? Nah, I'm good without Popeye having a fit at me, thanks. In fact, none of this terrorist nonsense is going to anyone. As of now, Stark Tower isn't receiving any info about anything that happens to us."

"Okay, sir." JARVIS said, clearly reluctant.

"So, anything else? What about the attacks, we got any patterns?"

A hologram pulled up out from the floor, giving a view of the blast site courtesy of the security cameras and police records that had just been hacked into. It was slightly disturbing to see Happy over in the corner, staring over at something.

"The heat from the blast was over 3000 degrees Celsius." JARVIS rattled off the facts. "Anyone within 12.5 yards of it was vaporised instantly." _So, thank god Happy was further away than that, then. _"No bomb parts were found in a three mile radius of the explosion."

"Ah." Well, that made no sense. Clearly, _something _here had exploded.

"So it wasn't a bomb?" Hiccup guessed. "Do you have any highly explosive creatures that I need to know about?" he half-joked.

"Oh, yes, how could I have forgotten to mention the explosive dogs?" Tony asked mockingly. "It's so obvious now." He walked into the hologram, moving over to where Happy lay. It looked like he was pointing at something, however weakly. Tony looked up to follow his gaze and saw military dog tags lying on the floor. "Hey, any military victims?"

"Not according to public records, sir."

Hiccup looked over at the dog tags. "What do they have to do with being in an army?"

"They're given to military personnel," Tony imparted his knowledge of the army to the Viking, "as identification. These are pretty burnt though; might not be able to tell whose they are."

"So, are we supposed to find some similar incidents?" Hiccup guessed. Tony suddenly realised that the Viking didn't just not know a few terms or traditions, he was used to a whole different life, which probably meant that he was just guessing the information-gathering methods now. For all he knew, Tony might have a machine that solved it all for him.

"Yeah. JARVIS, any explosions with that 3000 degree heat signature, please." There would be time to sort out their differences later. The scene of the explosion changed to a map, on which a few dots appeared to signal the attacks. "Any of these not Mandarin?"

All but one of the dots disappeared. "What's that, then?" Hiccup wondered.

"It predates any known Mandarin attack." JARVIS explained. "The incident was the use of a bomb to assist a suicide."

_Yikes. _Tony pulled up a news source for the event. "It's pretty similar..." he noted. "and that makes two military guys. Ever been to Tennessee, Hiccup?"

"Creating a flight plan to Tennessee." Good old JARVIS, always knew what Tony wanted him to do.

"Well, we can go and check this lead out, then -" Tony was cut off by the sound of the doorbell.

"We have a visitor?" Hiccup asked, surprised.

"We're still at 'ding-dong'?" Tony was equally confused. "I just gave a terrorist my home address, surely we should be in some kind of lockdown?"

Ah, well. Might as well go and see who it was. In the suit, though - just in case.

"I hope you managed to sort that suit stuff out," Tony said, flicking his wrists to call the mark 42 to him, "because we aren't going up there unprepared."

* * *

Neither Clint nor Snotlout turned up for breakfast. While it wasn't odd for someone to miss tea, not turning up to breakfast was strange - especially since Tony and Hiccup had gone. So, Astrid and Natasha made the suggestion that perhaps they should check on Clint and Snotlout.

You know, just in case they were in some sort of trouble.

Steve had agreed, mainly since he _was _a bit worried about them, and volunteered to be the one to go to find the two. It wasn't a long walk up to Clint's level, and soon he found himself standing outside the archer's room.

He approached the door and knocked on it loudly. "Clint?"

There was no reply, but Steve's advanced hearing meant that he could tell what was going on inside the room. The two men inside were fully awake, scrambling around. It was strange, Steve thought, that they were both in the same room. And on Clint's floor. He didn't know why - perhaps they needed the privacy? Did Snotlout not enjoy having to share a floor with the other Vikings?

He knocked again.

_"Just coming!" _Snotlout called, and the scrambling continued, accompanied by a rustling noise. After a minute of waiting, wondering whether or not to just bash the door down - he decided that it would be rude, and since Tony wasn't there to replace it they'd be there for some time - it finally opened.

Snotlout's face popped round, and he checked back behind him before he opened the door fully. Clint was sat on the bed, adjusting a hat on his head. It was a black hat, that appeared to have a pink lining.

"Nice hat." Steve commented.

"Thanks; I made it myself." Clint shot back. "What're you here for, anyway?"

"Breakfast. It's ready, and you didn't come down."

"Oh, yeah." Clint said, getting off the bed slowly - why was he putting so much concentration into keeping his hat on? - and moving over to Snotlout and Steve. "Let's go down, then."

* * *

"Good morning, Clint." Natasha smiled. Steve frowned as he saw the show off affection rebuffed in the form of a rather intense glare. Even stranger, Natasha didn't take offence to the action; she seemed to expect it, and returned the gesture with a perfectly cheerful grin.

Steve may have liked to think the best of people, but it was hard to not see that something was going on here. _To do with the prank war? _he guessed, trying to remember the last prank. As far as he knew, Clint and Snotlout had managed to have the last say, with their food prank. Nothing else had happened for a while, and while it made life a little more dull, Steve couldn't say he was mourning the loss of the mischief.

"Morning, _Natasha." _Clint said forcefully, taking the seat furthest away from the ex-assassin. Steve still didn't know what was going on, so he decided to try and diffuse the situation.

"Anyone want pancakes?" he offered, holding the frying pan up.

"Ah, yes, please." Bruce smiled awkwardly, recognising the attempt in action.

_"Me and Fishlegs too." _Eret called.

"Anyone else?"

There was no response. The twins were exchanging confused glances between their habitual squabbling, while Snotlout and Clint glared daggers at the - for some reason quite smug - Natasha and Astrid.

So, it _was _a prank, after all. "What did you do?" Steve asked. He had a few guesses - it may have been over seventy years ago, and the times may have changed, but a prank was still a prank, and he'd experienced a lot of them, harmless or otherwise.

_"Whatever do you mean?" _Astrid asked innocently, blinking up at Steve. _"I honestly have no idea what a... 'prank'... even is."_

He had to hand it to her, Astrid made quite the convincing performance. Unfortunately, no amount of acting skill would dissuade Steve. "Really, what was it? Squirty cream to the face? Hiding in his closet?"

Bruce was smiling now - not in his usual, bashful way, but more mischievously. Natasha had corrupted him, clearly.

Natasha grinned devilishly. "Why don't they show us?"

Clint's glare managed - somehow, quite impossibly - to get even more intense now that everyone was staring at him expectantly. "Fine." he huffed eventually. "This stupid hat was getting itchy anyway."

He grabbed the hat off, revealing that it was, in fact, completely black. What Steve had assumed as a lining was actually Clint's _hair _showing through, and it was entirely that colour.

Eret tried to stifle a laugh, but failed miserably. _"That's _amazing!" he enthused. _"How'd they do that?"_

"Switched my shampoo with pink hair dye." Clint grumbled. "Couldn't've been purple or something, oh _no..."_

"Well, I know you like purple." Natasha explained evenly, amusement betrayed by her smile. It pleased Steve that she was showing genuine emotions now; it looked like she felt comfortable enough to drop her facades.

_"Look on the bright side: you don't need to hide it anymore." _Astrid grinned, standing up to ruffle Clint's hair as she went to check on Steve's pancake-making progress and earning a half-hearted swat on the arm for her efforts.

_"Why do _I _not get hair ruffles?" _Snotlout complained good-naturedly.

_"Because you enjoy them." _Astrid smirked.

* * *

Tony wore his mark 42, which was apparently still in the developmental stages - Hiccup wasn't going to question the genius's decision, but it didn't sound like the best one to him - while Hiccup took his own suit. He wasn't sure what it was called. Mark 43? Or did it have a different name entirely?

Not that that mattered much now, since his main focus was supposed to be on whoever they were coming up to meet.

Toothless was there too, standing back a bit as a secret weapon and growling in the direction of anything that dared to make a noise. It was comforting to have the back-up.

_"I don't think a terrorist would knock." _Hiccup confided, glad now for all the time he'd spent sorting out his issues with the suit - it was a bit clunky, trying to walk in it, but he had managed some efficiency in the air. And there was always autopilot.

_"Neither do I," _Tony agreed, _"but who else would be turning up?"_

The answer was revealed to them, as a woman came into view. She was knocking on the glass door, peering through. Upon sight of the Iron Man suit she relaxed, waiting to be let in. She was armed only with a small handbag, so Tony deemed her safe to let in.

"Who's this?" Hiccup asked, in Norse - JARVIS could translate directly to Tony's suit.

_"No idea," _Tony responded. _"no, wait... you were at Switzerland too, weren't you? Wow, what a coincidence. Maya, right? Maya Hansen."_

_"That's a pretty good memory you've got there, considering you were drunk." _Maya confirmed.

That seemed to jog something else in Tony's memory. _"Oh god, you're not here to tell me I have a son, are you? What would he be, like, twelve?"_

_"He's thirteen and he's in the car." _Maya deadpanned. _"No, I'm here to tell you to leave."_

_"We've already considered that option." _Hiccup said, _"It isn't the one we're going with."_

A thud sounded behind him, and a suitcase fell to the floor. _"Apparently someone didn't give Pepper the memo." _Tony commented mildly, watching as more things were tossed down the stairs.

_"You really do need to leave." _Maya insisted, _"You just gave a terrorist your home address -"_

_"Trust me, we know. And it's not a move that's gonna be tried again, right?" _Hiccup glared at Tony, who was still watching the suitcases.

_"Oh, yeah, not gonna do that again. It'd be pointless; everyone already knows where the Avengers Tower is."_

Oh, gods. Hiccup hadn't thought of that. _"What if they send someone after -"_

_"Hey, the tower has the best security systems I can offer. And I offer good security systems."_

_"I assume you've got them all in place here, then?" _Maya asked.

Tony laughed. _"Course not! What's the fun in that?"_

Maya rolled her eyes, but didn't bother to try and argue. The luggage had finally stopped raining down on them now, and Pepper was making her way down the stairs to join them. _"We're leaving." _she announced once she reached the bottom of the stairs.

_"Finally, someone with some sense!" _Maya said, exaggerated, taking one of the suitcases up in her hands and pulling it over the door. _"You two need to pack too." _she advised, glaring pointedly at Tony. _"Maya Hansen, by the way." _she introduced.

_"Pepper." _Pepper returned the gesture. _"You probably already know Tony, and this is Hiccup."_

Maya made a strange face at his name. _"My first name is the least weird bit of it." _he assured her.

Over in the corner, where Toothless had been hiding while the humans talked, Toothless was getting anxious for a bit of action. He conveyed this with a short, otherwise meaningless growl.

_'It's okay, Toothless,' _Hiccup assured, lifting the faceplate of his own suit just as Tony was doing to talk to Pepper, _'we're just talking about leaving. We need to be able to get out quickly, if we have to.'_

Toothless nodded in understanding and edged closer to the door.

_"Hey, guys?" _Hiccup looked up to see Maya pointing at a nearby TV screen. Pepper and Tony were too busy locked in an argument to pay attention. _"Do we need to be doing something about that?"_

The screen showed a collection of helicopters, all hovering outside the mansion - _are they media, or terrorist? _Presumably the footage itself was being shot from a helicopter, so they might not be dangerous.

_"We really need to be concentrating on that." _Hiccup agreed, grabbing Tony and pushing him to look at the screen. Now, there was a missile clearly visible on it, and it was headed directly for them.

_"Ah, sh -" _The explosion cut off Tony's sentence. Hiccup felt himself forced back, falling through the air as he watched Tony's suit disassemble and come together around Pepper. A heroic gesture, but it left Tony defenceless.

_'Toothless!' _Hiccup yelled as he flew back, seeing the dragon react and start flying towards him, _'Get Pepper and Maya out!'_

Toothless nodded; he'd been in enough situations like this to trust Hiccup's survival skills. For a while, at least. He leapt over the bits of falling ceiling, ignoring the dust clouds billowing up from them as he made his way over to the women. Maya was a bit surprised to see a dragon coming to her rescue, but she accepted the help nonetheless. Toothless took off to fly out, but a bit of rubble slashing his prosthetic tailfin ruined that idea.

Now, Hiccup decided as Toothless disappeared with the others on his back, it was time to retrieve Tony.

_"You okay?" _Hiccup checked. There hadn't been time to reach him, and Tony looked quite banged up from what Hiccup could tell.

_"Just peachy." _Tony said sarcastically. _"Right, we need to take out these guys."_

Hiccup nodded, raising a hand and preparing the propulsors. Actually hitting the helicopters was a feat in itself, not helped by the way the floor was gradually tilting more and more, or that the systems were damaged from the first explosion. And that was before the second wave of missiles.

Hiccup instinctively went to protect Tony, but the suit took more damage in the process. Meanwhile, JARVIS informed Tony that the suit was safe to take from Pepper, so at least he'd have one less thing to worry about.

Now, where had he been?

Oh, yes: taking out some terrorists.

The next few missiles sent the mansion sliding towards the cliff edge, and it was more than random bits of rubble falling into the surrounding water now. The lower levels had been compromised - even the lab, where all the other suits were.

_"We've got to get out of here!" _Hiccup shouted above the rumbling of the house.

_"The suit won't fly!" _Tony shouted back. _"We need to take these 'copters out!"_

How he was going to do that without the energy blasts from his hands working properly, Hiccup didn't know. The good news was that the systems looked to just be rebooting to solve the problem, so if the fight dragged on...

By the looks of how things were going, it wasn't going to be going on for much longer.

Tony took a sliding piano into his armoured arms, using what little power he had to push it into the main helicopter. It fell - _one down, quite a few more to go - _but took more of the building with it. And when had the terrorists got so close?

There were missiles coming constantly now, raining down fire in the form of explosions. With as the intervals between each strike as small as they were, there wasn't enough time to evade them all and try to take out the helicopters.

Hiccup took what little time he had to aim the proplusors at the main helicopter, sending out a quick blast that made a glancing blow. While it was a good shot, it hadn't actually hit the intended target. The missile continued on its path straight forwards, striking the floor just below Hiccup's feet. He was thrown backwards, into a wall and a world of pain.

* * *

Toothless growled at his uselessness. There Hiccup was, defending against whatever those terrible wingless - yet still flying - machines were throwing at him, and here he was, with a busted tailfin and nothing to do other than wait.

_'Hiccup!' _he yelled, watching as Pepper - a strange name, like a Viking's (though this wasn't the time to be pondering such things) - did the same for her mate. The house had taken a strange tilt now, and was starting to slide down into the ocean below. Toothless knew of Hiccup's luck, and having had experience with having to fish him out of the water, he wasn't too confident of the Viking's chances.

The other woman - Toothless neither knew nor cared about her name - was thinking more clearly than the other two, having no real personal ties to those in immediate danger. "We should get back." she advised, in that strange not-Norse that Hiccup had spent so much time learning to speak. "Don't want to fall in too."

Pepper nodded at the words, and complied. While Toothless would normally never listen to such a request, he was temporarily flightless, so he had to obey.

_Hiccup better come back soon. _Toothless decided, shifting closer to the mansion despite the danger.

* * *

"Hiccup!" Tony yelled, reaching out and grabbing the Viking before he could slide down into the water. "Are you okay?"

Hiccup made a slurred groan of a response, and Tony had to accept that as a yes.

_"Tony..." _Hiccup started to sit up, which was just as well since there was a helicopter slowly losing altitude, and the driver had decided that, if he was going to go down, he was going to take them with him.

There was no time for a smartass response, as the slowly stopping blades came through, smashing any remaining glass and setting alight on impact. There was a hole in the floor now, and with no propulsion and nothing to hold onto, Tony and Hiccup fell through.

They were through to the lab now, and Tony could see Dum-E trying to grab onto something to hold as the world slipped from beneath him. _Oh, god. _They might not be human, but they were as close as robots had ever gotten, and they were family, damn it. Tony felt his breath hitching and looked away from the suffering technology. It wouldn't do to be distracted.

There was still one helicopter left, and it had brought the missiles back out. A tad overkill, perhaps, but Tony wouldn't deny that their methods were working. The suits were being destroyed now, and he couldn't bring himself to really care as the last few months' work was blown to smithereens as he watched on, helpless. It was probably the least sucky aspect of the situation.

He was slipping, but he held tight onto Hiccup, and the bit of floor he'd found purchase on. They were going to go over the edge.

A waterfall of debris and sparking, broken gadgets cascaded down into the ocean, engulfing Tony as he was jostled around. Everything was moving too fast to be able to see, to get a bearing on what was up or down or left or right.

With a jolt, it all stopped. A few pieces of wall were still floating down, but the confusion was over.

Tony wasn't sure if that was much better; he now knew that he was trapped.

On the upside, Hiccup was a bit less trapped. Now, if only he was awake, he could rescue them both.

He'd have to be quick though; Tony's suit was rapidly filling with water. He wouldn't have had much oxygen anyway, but this was making a massive dent on his supply. _Come on, Hiccup... _Tony thought, still struggling against the metal trapping him even as the water level rose above his nose and mouth.

* * *

Hiccup groaned as he came back into consciousness. He was aware of water, a sensation of falling and sudden weightlessness. Cracking an eye open, he realised that Tony was there too, wherever they were. There was a support beam trapping him in, which Hiccup tugged at, to no avail.

He wasn't even sure what was going on - had they won? Where were the helicopters? - but he knew he had to get them out.

Hiccup tugged again on the beam holding Tony down. Both the suits weren't designed for underwater use - he understood enough of the schematics to know that - so he was going to run out of oxygen any time now. By the looks of the way Tony was faring, he'd run out of oxygen a while ago.

Trying to escape while under a time limit, having just hit your head and working with a severely depleted oxygen level, weren't, as it turned out, the best conditions for good idea creation. Hiccup grabbed Tony's hand, pulling as hard as he could, and managed to free him.

"We... we need to get out of here." he panted to himself, suddenly aware of the headache he had - was that new, or had he just not noticed it? "We... we need..."

JARIVS heard the request, and delivered.


	7. Not So Fireproof

**A/n: haha, yeah. Took me a bit longer to finish this one than I expected. Hopefully, the next chapter shouldn't take as long. My only excuse is laziness, but I think that's a pretty good excuse so hey.  
In other news, this is a (almost entirely) tower-centred chapter. Back to Hiccup and Tony next time though.**

* * *

Toothless edged over to the cliff face. What had once been the site of a sturdy, sleek house was now destroyed. Nothing remained, everything that hadn't been blown up having slid into the ocean.

Hiccup and Tony had never come out of the house. Toothless didn't really want to know whether they'd been taken by the explosion or the water; both were just as bad, and whatever happened, Hiccup was dead.

_No. _Hiccup wasn't dead - couldn't be. He'd escaped worse than that with less technology, so he had to be alive. He just hadn't come back. Why, Toothless didn't know - one thing he knew for certain is that Hiccup would never willingly leave Toothless, ever - but there must've been a reason.

All Toothless had to do was wait, bide his time, and Hiccup would come back for him.

He wasn't even going to consider the alternatives.

* * *

Clint tugged at his hair to bring it in front of his eyes. It was still dyed, but he'd managed to turn the shocking pink into a much nicer shade of purple. Turning the prank around like that, so that it worked to his advantage - because honestly, purple hair looked kinda cool on him - meant that this round had gone to him.

And he hadn't even had to prank anyone.

Not that he was going to take a break and let the girls try something else on. No, he'd find the most amazing prank, something that not even Natasha would be able to remain calm throughout.

Astrid would be in for a shock, he mused, since she'd never managed see just how good at pranking he was. Sure, he was at a disadvantage (Snotlout wasn't the best cunning thinker, as it turned out, so he was doing most of the idea-making on his own - he wasn't even counting Tuffnut; destructive abilities and lacking brain cells did not an effective pranker make) but he was confident that he could come up with something _epic._

And he wasn't going to leave his room until he'd done it.

Also, Astrid and Natasha were trading their knowledge of different languages downstairs, and while it could be funny, watching them struggle with the translators off, it got boring fast. Still, if Natasha was starting to learn, he'd have to start sooner or later.

Mind you... learning languages took effort, which he was currently spending on cunning ideas.

Better make that later.

Getting JARVIS to play bird calls would be a good one - bird themed pranks always were - but its originality was impeded by the translation prank. He might do it anyway, in the interim, just to get on their nerves. Maybe have that, then the real one the next day. A false sense of security.

And it'd have to be long-lasting, embarrassing... Clint pulled himself up into the vent and stared back down at his bed - high spaces were the best for thinking, and this would have to be a _very _well thought out plan.

_Maybe I could -_

"Mr Barton," JARVIS cut in, ever formal, "I have been told to inform you that you are needed."

"What for?" he grumbled, reluctantly getting down from his perch.

"I believe the term was 'Avengers Assemble'."

* * *

Clint was the last to respond to the call, out of the remaining Avengers and the Vikings. He looked over at Fury quizzically when he entered, and was surprised - and mildly suspicious - when the look wasn't returned by the usual glare. Either Fury was having a very, very good day, or something terrible had happened.

In Clint's experience, it was usually the latter.

"What are we doing here?" Fishlegs asked, surprising Clint with his use of English - perhaps Cap had been teaching him... "We aren't Avengers, and the call was for -"

"Might as well be." Fury said shortly, tone clearly showing his complete lack of intention to elaborate. Clint tried to think back to who'd last referred to the Vikings as Avengers. As far as he knew, it was Tony. But Tony wasn't dead, and Fury only ever did that type of thing in honour of dead people... _strange._

"So, what're we doing?" Astrid asked - so, her English lessons were going well. Maybe it was just Snotlout and the twins who hadn't learnt anything yet. In which case, Clint would have to rectify that, whether the parties involved were willing or not.

"We've had reports of 'scary robots wearing Link clothes'." Fury explained, gaining a mix of confused looks and slight laughs, dependent on whether the reference was understood or not. "They're attacking from multiple fronts, so you're going to need to split up."

_And look for clues, _Clint added mentally, just as Cap chimed in with his own "well, we've already split into three groups, so we should be okay using those."

"That would be great," Fury said, and Clint could practically _feel _the 'but', there, "if there were three groups. There's only two."

Well, that wasn't _so _much of a problem. A quick headcount revealed that there were actually ten people present anyway, so if one of the groups split up... "Me and Bruce can go with the Cap," Clint offered, "and the other two can go with the girls."

The twins butted heads in agreement, and Snotlout wiggled a suggestive eyebrow at Natasha, who returned the gesture with a forceful elbow to the face. It had become somewhat of an in-joke, now, rather than the genuine flirting that it'd started out with. Which was good for Snotlout, because if it was still proper flirting he'd've been in hospital by now.

Clint moved over to his temporary teammates, relieved to be free of the two men of lesser intellect - they weren't bad, but spending so much time in close quarters with them had made them seem more irritating than they really were. Bruce moved over into Clint's group, and the teaming up problem was solved. Bruce smiled at Clint, ruffling his hair, and it occurred for the first time to Clint that, for some reason, Fury hadn't called him out on his strange appearance.

What was with that? His hair was definitely still the strong purple colour - he'd only dyed it that morning - so why wouldn't he be being teased about it? Well, Fury's reasons were his own, and - usually - completely illogical to all but him. Maybe he'd ask Natasha later; she spent a lot of time reading people, but even she hadn't managed to completely crack Fury.

"Alright," Clint grinned, "take us to the tunics."

* * *

Bruce looked over at the robots - Doombots, apparently; named after their creator - and tried to judge the situation. "Is there any point in me Hulking out?" he asked, squinting at the more distant machines, "or am I needed to work out weak points?"

_"I can do that," _Fishlegs offered, realising only halfway through the sentence that he wasn't speaking English, "if you need to... Hulk out?"

Bruce smiled at the Viking's confusion over the unfamiliar term. "That'd be helpful." he admitted. "Well, see you later."

And with that pleasant goodbye, Bruce turned to face the new threat and let the rage in the back of his mind take over. His muscles bulged, growing until he was the towering green rage-monster he was more well known for being.

_Hulk **smash!**_

* * *

With Bruce in full Hulk mode, the task of weak spot spotting fell to Fishlegs. And, mouthful as it was, it was still easier said than done.

He immediately regretted letting Bruce go. Not that the Hulk wouldn't be helpful, but - and Fishlegs was really cursing his bad luck to have not noticed this _before _it was too late - Fishlegs had no idea how machines worked.

At all.

_Keep your head on, you can do this, just... think about what Hiccup would do!_

That mentality lasted about three seconds, ending with Fishlegs throwing his arms into the air and running off behind Clint, yelling "I don't know how to do this someone help oh Thor what was I thinking I don't know what a Doombot _is!"_

He said more than just that, but it was neither intelligible nor interesting, so nobody heard it.

"Nobody_ knows what these Doombots are,"_ Clint pointed out, _"so your guess is as good as any. You've got that dragon to help you get up to them, so why don't you take Eret up there with you?"_

Fishlegs nodded uncertainly, hopping on Meatlug and giving her a shaky pat as he left.

That left Steve and Clint on the ground.

_"So, I hear you're the star-spangled man with a plan?"_

Steve groaned.

* * *

"Look at me; I'm on a Doombot!" Tuffnut laughed, bashing his head against the metal casing of the robot he was stood on. Ruffnut, from her position above him where she stood on Barf and Belch, threw her helmet down at him to hit him on the head.

"I can tell you're gonna ask, so: _no, they never take anything seriously." _Astrid deadpanned to Natasha.

_"Well, they're gonna have to start doing." _Natasha frowned, taking a gun from her belt. _"So, are we getting the dragons to just grill them?"_

Astrid grinned. _"Yeah. Let's see how fireproof they are."_

With a slight nudge, Stormfly took off after Hookfang and Barf and Belch, shooting a few spikes in the robot's direction as she did. Her aim was true, and the machine was pierced multiple times. Sparks started coming off the Doombot (Astrid wasn't an expert, but Natasha assured that this was a bad sign - well, a good sign in this circumstance, but generally a bad one) but it stayed standing.

"Looks like it's gonna take more than that," Astrid cursed quietly, pulling in beside Snotlout.

"Yeah, you can't kill 'em with your stupid spikes!" Tuffnut laughed, "You've gotta use _fire!" _He pointed forwards, laughing wildly as Ruffnut prompted her head - Astrid still wasn't quite sure which was which, and she wasn't sure if the twins quite knew, either - to spew out the gas. One spark later, and the Doombot was alight.

It was only a matter of seconds before the heat melted through the casing, and the slight sparks Stormfly had caused turned into crackles as the inner machinery burned.

"Wow." Astrid flew back down to Natasha, whose grip on her gun was slackening, much like her jaw, as she watched the first Doombot collapse to the ground, broken. _"Are they... supposed to be so... easy to break?"_

_"I guess Dr Doom just didn't anticipate us having the _fire_power," _Natasha joked, holding a hand to her ear as she activated her earpiece. _"Hey, Clint."_

* * *

"Little tip: these guys aren't fireproof. At all."

Clint grinned as he heard Natasha's voice, and looked over to the Vikings. "Hey, guys!" he waved at them, catching Fishlegs' attention. "Natasha says to just set fire to them!"

Fishlegs nodded, and he and Meatlug turned round to spread the message to the others, fire starting in the dragon's mouth.

There were hundreds of the robots, even with the Hulk going round and smashing them, so Clint figured it'd take a few hours to melt all of them down. In the meantime, anyone not a dragon or a dragon rider was pretty useless.

"Hey, Nat," Clint said, loud enough for Steve to hear, "wanna go get lunch?"

"Hey, I know you love me, but don't you think the middle of a battle's really the best time for a first date?" Natasha joked, and Clint could hear the smirk in her voice.

"No time like the present," Clint returned, "and besides, Cap's coming with us!"

"Where am I going?" Speak of the devil, Steve had taken his attention off the fight - it really was quite one sided by this point, and not at all interesting for spectators, so Clint didn't blame him.

"To get lunch." Clint revealed. "We should get Bruce to come too. Uh, how do we de-Hulk him?"

Steve looked over to the resident big green rage machine, who was slowly realising that everything he was supposed to be smashing was too busy being on fire to be smashed. For a monster only capable of anger, he looked rather disappointed by the lack of robots to destroy.

"Maybe he'll calm down on his own," Steve suggested hopefully, just as the Hulk sat down and started staring at the robot head he had in his hands.

"Looks like he already is." Clint noted. "Hey, where're Bruce's spare clothes?"

"Spare clothes?" Natasha echoed.

"We don't have any, do we?" Steve sighed, successfully reading Clint's exasperation.

"Nope." Clint popped the 'p', rocking back on his heels. "So, who wants to go find him some clothes?"

"I might as well," Natasha volunteered. "I'll have to make my way over to you anyway; I'll see what I can find on the way over."

* * *

Finding a shop was, really, quite a bit easier than it should've been. For starters, none of the shops seemed to have closed. Sure, New York had already experienced quite a large scale invasion attempt not that long ago, but that didn't mean that they should be particularly flippant about giant robots marching towards them.

Whatever. It was convenient, and Natasha couldn't be bothered acting on her suspicions. Casually ghosting her fingers across the gun in her pocket - not her favourite, but it would suffice - she entered the store.

The sign outside had advertised it as the 'only place to find high fashion at low prices', and while she doubted that, she had to acknowledge that it _was _eye-catching; it was the first one on the street that she'd noticed.

An overhead bell announced her entrance. Natasha stiffened unperceptively at the noise, quickly scanning out the men's section and walking - perhaps slightly faster than necessary - towards it.

There were a lot of shirts, Natasha noticed, but nothing that Bruce would usually like to wear. 'Awkward but still kinda well dressed', apparently, didn't count as 'high fashion' at the moment. Giving up on the idea of locating a good shirt - would these even fit him, anyway? - Natasha strolled down the aisle towards the t-shirts. Her hands brushed lightly along the fabrics, occasionally halting to pull an item out for further scrutinising. About halfway down the row, a flash of green under her curled fingers caught her attention.

Natasha pulled the t-shirt out. _Perfect._

* * *

Natasha turned up twenty minutes later, a plastic bag in hand. By this point, Bruce had thoroughly de-Hulked and was awaiting clothing, sat awkwardly on the floor, trying to cover himself with the Doombot head and keep warm.

"What've you got him?" Clint asked, trying to peer into the bag. Natasha pulled it away from him and shook her head.

"Nuh-uh. You have to wait 'till he puts them on." she said with mock sternness, tossing the bag behind the partially destroyed Doombot. "There you go, try those out."

There were a few shuffling noises from behind the robot, as everyone studiously ignored Bruce getting dressed. He popped round a few seconds later, leaving only his head visible.

"Do they not fit you?" Steve asked.

"What? Uh, no..." Bruce stepped out completely.

"Oh my _god, _that's brilliant!" Clint laughed. Bruce was wearing a green t-shirt, emblazoned with the face of the Other Guy.

"Give us a spin." Natasha suggested, and Bruce reluctantly complied. The back of the shirt read "Hulk smash!", and was just about the best thing Clint had seen all day.

"Do they have those in Hawkeye?" he asked, tone joking though he was actually serious.

"Yep." Natasha confirmed. "One for each of us, and an 'Avengers Assemble'."

"I've got to get one." Clint decided. "Show me the way."

* * *

Despite Steve's protests - which were, admittedly, half-hearted, but then again he wasn't completely against the idea - he still ended up with a Captain America t-shirt. After a quick stop to put on their new purchases, the small group found the nearest restaurant with pizza on the menu - surprisingly close; why hadn't they evacuated? - and found a table.

"We should be helping the Vikings," Steve protested as a waitress showed them to their table, with a smile and an inquiry into their drinks preferences. He frowned deeper as Clint ordered alcohol - drinking on the job, especially one that was so life-or-death, was pretty irresponsible - and requested a glass of water for himself.

"Aw, but _Capsicle!" _Clint begged, pulling out one of Tony's favourite nicknames.

"This place is pretty close. We can get back if we're needed." Natasha reasoned, picking up a menu and scouring it intently.

"I'd hate to ruin this new shirt." Bruce said with a slight smile.

Steve rolled his eyes, but didn't push the issue. _Might as well see what they have, then. _He picked up his own menu, and prepared to decide whether or not to be adventurous.

* * *

"How're things holding up on your end?" Astrid asked, feeling slightly awkward since she was technically talking to thin air.

"We've got about half of them." Fishlegs responded.

Astrid nodded. A pause. "Err, keep it up then." she said, quite awkwardly, when she realised that Fishlegs couldn't see her.

"Yeah, I'll do that. Um, tell me when you're done." Astrid nodded again, but there wasn't time to rectify that before Fishlegs went back to battling.

Astrid surveyed her own battle. It was going well, obviously in their favour, and, now that the fire was spreading from robot to robot, it wouldn't long until they were all gone.

_What're we supposed to do when they're all gone? _The thought hadn't occurred to her before, and now that it had, she was stumped.

_"You nearly done?" _The answer came from Clint, speaking, voice muffled, into the com. _"We got pizza with your names on it, if you can get here before it gets cold."_

Astrid shook her head with a laugh. _"What do we do? With these... Doombots - once we've melted them all?"_

_"I dunno. Let SHIELD deal with it." _Clint advised sagely. Astrid could hear him taking a bite of his pizza, and he chewed thoughtfully for a while before continuing. _"We're at the closest pizza place. Just go straight down the road you're on - you're still on the same road, right?"_

Astrid prided herself in remembering to just say _"yeah."_

_"Great, then just head down there for a bit." _Clint said. In the background, Astrid could make out Natasha's voice, but not what she was saying. _"Yeah, yeah, I know. Well, bye."_

* * *

Natasha grinned as the Vikings entered the restaurant. "Told ya they'd be fine, gramps." she grinned, getting up to usher them over.

"So, how did your first battle against robots go?"

_"It was _boring!" Snotlout scoffed. _"They didn't even fight back, they just melted or whatever."_

"Yeah, Doctor Doom probably wasn't expecting us to just flamethrower his ass." Clint agreed. "Good thing you have those dragons."

"Speaking of dragons, where are they?" Steve asked.

"We sent them back to the tower." Astrid explained. _"More to the point - what's with your shirts?"_

_"What, these?"_ Natasha grinned. "Official Avengers t-shirts, apparently."

"Don't see them paying us for them though." Clint grumbled. "Not that I'm complaining; this Hawkeye shirt is_ awesome."_

"Sounds awfully like complaining to me." Steve pointed out with a grin.

"I'm hurt," Clint said with dramatic sarcasm. "wounded by a museum exhibit!"

"Now come on," Natasha chided, "I'm sure gramps didn't mean it. He's going senile in his old age, I'm afraid, so he doesn't understand the art of sick burns as much as he used to."

Bruce let out a sharp exhale of breath at the jibe, shaking his head at Clint's hysterics. The others shared a slightly confused look.

_"This is one of those slang words, isn't it?" _Eret guessed.

"Not one I've ever heard of..." Steve muttered. "I'm guessing it doesn't mean a burn that got infected, then?"

"Yeah, nah." Clint agreed. "Just means... I dunno. Good insult. Y'know the sick means good thing? It's like that."

Steve nodded thoughtfully. "What a weird phrase." he commented mildly, turning his attention back to his food.

* * *

Fury sat back in his chair, reviewing the footage he'd pulled up from the fight. The Avengers were working well with the Vikings, the dragons making up for the lack of Iron Man quite nicely. Speaking of Iron Man, it appeared that the team weren't mentioning him. Perhaps it was one of their coping mechanisms - Natasha and Clint certainly liked to put on a front; maybe the Vikings did too, since - from what he remembered of Thor's talk about the people who worshipped him - they didn't exactly celebrate the expression of emotion.

Whatever the reason, he was just going to leave them to their strange ways of getting over it (what technique Hawkeye and Snotlout were trying to apply with that hair-dying, he had no idea, but he hoped it was working out for them). And if that meant not mentioning Tony's death, then that was what he'd do.

The way they were acting really was strange though, almost as though they didn't even know. But that was preposterous; the media coverage of the event was crazy, and with the amount of access the tower had to that type of thing, it would take nothing short of a miracle for them to have conveniently missed the channels constantly showing the clips of the mansion slipping down from the cliff edge on which it once stood.

Fury decided that, in the end, it didn't really matter. Tony was dead, but the team was still functioning, and the Avengers were as effective as ever. Hiccup was dead too, though it was a less well-known fact, so maybe the Vikings really didn't know yet that they'd lost their chief.

He'd have to inform them the next time he saw them.

Unbeknownst to Fury, Tony and Hiccup were very much alive.

* * *

Hiccup woke to Tony shaking him. "What..." he squinted up at the billionaire's face - since when was it so blurry? - and realised that he was doing fish impressions. Well, it was actually speech, but it may as well have been a fish impression with the amount of it that Hiccup understood.

_"I don't understand you." _Tony said, thankfully slowly this time so that Hiccup could actually understand. _"JARVIS... he isn't up to translating right now."_

Hiccup nodded. He knew what JARVIS meant to Tony, and that he saw him more as a human than a bunch of coding. More concerningly, if JARVIS wasn't functional, that meant that the suits weren't either.

_"Do you remember what happened?" _Tony prompted, just as slowly as the last time.

Hiccup nodded again. Now that he thought about it, he remembered the fire, the explosions... a lot of pain, then water, then darkness. _"It..._ where -_ where are we?"_

_"Tennessee, I think." _Tony replied, sounding immensely relieved. _"JARVIS made a flight plan, remember? Now, we need to... god, I don't know. We need to get back, but we can't - the suit's broken - and we can't fix it here... I - what now?"_

_"If we can't fix it here, we'll find somewhere we _can." Hiccup said firmly, finally sitting up to find himself in the middle of the snow. He hadn't felt the cold until then, but now that he'd noticed it he couldn't ignore it. _"Toothless needs to know I'm okay." _he realised, pushing himself up and out of the broken suit.

_"We can find a payphone..." _Tony was calming now, shaking from the cold instead of panic. _"Then someone's garage."_

* * *

**Review answer for PuzzlerthePony: a) thanks, b) to an extent, yes  
Did I answer SidheWolf5? If not: I think the mansion would be in the way. I was imagining them as pretty low-flying by the time Toothless had got everyone out and safe, so I don't think he'd be able to do anything without risking hitting Hiccup or Tony. Sorry if that bit didn't quite get communicated.**


	8. Where's My Sandwich?

**A/n: hi guys, still alive here. I can't even remember how long ago it was that I updated, but I'm pretty sure it was more than a week. So, sorry for that.  
On the topic of the last chapter though, I noticed a depressing lack of reviews for it. Usually I get seven or eight - which isn't that great anyway, considering how many people are following this - but last chapter only had three. If you could just give a quick review, tell me what you liked or didn't, it'd really help me make this story better.**

**Unrelated note: spellcheck isn't currently working, so any mistakes I've missed, feel free to point them out.**

**Anyhow, I won't make you wait any longer. Here's chapter eight!**

* * *

Hiccup waited awkwardly outside the phone box as Tony reeled off some passcodes, leaning on the glass and shivering slightly. He, like Tony, was dressed in a poncho, stolen from a model outside one of the shops they'd passed on their way over. Walking aimlessly around the snowy town in the middle of the night wasn't one of the most fun things, so stealing the extra clothing had been the highlight of his evening so far.

_"Pepper, It's me." _Tony's slightly muffled voice came through the glass, and he leant back against it as he ran a hand through his hair. _"I've got a lot of apologies to make, not much time. I'm so sorry I put you in harms way... it was stupid, selfish, won't happen again. I'd say more, but, Hiccup - he wants to talk to Toothless. Oh, and SHIELD. You gotta contact them, get them over here. Just, let the Avengers know we're okay."_

Hiccup replaced Tony in the phone booth, and took no time in starting his speech. _'Hey, bud. I'm okay. Hope you're getting this...' _He paused momentarily_. 'I'm just... stuck somewhere else for a bit. But I'm fine - I'm talking Dragonese, see? Oh, gods... just... don't get into trouble, okay?' _Now he was breathing heavily into the phone, not sure what else to say but desperately wanting to say _something._

There was no chance to. The phone clicked, requiring more money to work. Money which they didn't have. (Honestly, it was a bit ridiculous that a billionaire was having trouble paying for things, but that was one of the least strange parts of the situation.)

_"So... what now?" _Hiccup asked, emerging from the phone box as though he hadn't been practically crying just a few seconds ago.

_"Like __I said, we find a garage."_

* * *

Hiccup followed Tony, awkwardly as before, as they continued their wandering. _"How are we supposed to find it though?"_

_"I dunno. We're just looking for a place that looks a bit abandoned. Run down, no one in there, y'know?"_

Hiccup shrugged. At least they were doing _something, _and they were actively trying to seek out shelter. Hopefully they'd be able to find it sooner than they found the phone box.

They were approaching the end of the street now, where the small collection of bars and shops gave way to houses. The snow was thicker here, less trodden on compared to the relatively busy - and much more well-lit - scene behind them. The walk down the road had turned into more of a trudge, not good when you're barely managing anything more than a shuffle.

And when you've got a metal suit dragging along behind you.

_"What about that one?" _Hiccup suggested, pointing a shaking arm towards the closest house he could see. There was actually a shed next to it, one of considerable size, at that. Tony looked over at it appraisingly.

_Please, say yes. _Hiccup begged internally, feeling his knees give way just a bit more in his exhaustion.

_"Yeah, why not." _Tony said, and it was the best thing Hiccup had heard since waking up in the snowy forest. _"The lights for the house are off, too... Hope it isn't locked."_

As it turned out, the doors _were _locked. They weren't locked for long, though, with Tony's determination and a few well-placed kicks. As the doors flung open, sending a cloud of dust into the room that settled to create a new layer on top of the already dulled furnishings, Hiccup dropped his suit.

"Thank the gods..." he mumbled, staggering into the relative warmth and collapsing on a nearby sofa. That sent up another cloud of dust, which came back down to settle on Hiccup.

_"What?" _Tony asked, dragging both the suits inside and closing the doors behind him. _"Didn't quite catch that."_

"Speakin' in Norse..." Hiccup spoke into the sofa, voice muffled by the cushions. He was safely inside now; no need to stay alert. "Gonna take a... a nap..."

By the end of the sentence, he was asleep.

Tony shook his head, propping the two suits up against each other, then shifted the sleeping Viking into an upright position. He sat next to him on the sofa, relaxing back with a sigh.

_"I'll keep watch, then." _he decided, yawning. _"Make sure no one comes in..."_

His watch lasted less than five minutes.

* * *

Tony woke to someone shaking his shoulders.

"Go 'way Hiccup..." he complained, shoving the incessant hand out of his way. "'M tired..."

"I'm not Hiccup." Tony's eyes widened as he realised he didn't recognise the voice, and he shot up. The boy - quite young, and clearly not the owner of the shed - didn't move out of the way in time, so both of them knocked heads.

"Who are you?" Tony asked, rubbing his head and checking that Hiccup was okay. The Viking was still asleep, completely oblivious to what was going on. _Lucky._

"I'm Harley." the boy introduced. "And you're dead."

"Uh, no I'm not." Tony corrected. The boy shook his head and tossed a newspaper into the billionaire's lap.

"Well, you're supposed to be."

"Sorry to disappoint," Tony muttered as he glanced over the article. It was, indeed, labelling him as dead, with some lovely quotes from fellow businessmen who were using his 'death' as a chance to gain more publicity for themselves.

Lovely.

"What're you doing here?" Harley asked, "Is it to do with the attack? Are you hiding from the terrorists?"

"Woah, one question at a time!" Tony placed a hand over the kid's mouth. "Still waking up here! Uh, yeah, totally hiding from the terrorists. In... your shed. Safest place in the world, this is."

"Who's your friend?" Harley asked, prodding at Hiccup. The Viking shifted slightly, but didn't stir.

"Hey, my turn to ask questions!" Tony protested. "This is Hiccup. Totally awesome Viking guy from, like, a different universe. So where are your friends? Mom, dad, siblings and stuff?"

"Well, mom already left for the diner, and dad went to seven eleven to get scratch cards. I guess that he won, 'cause that was six years ago."

"Well, dads do that." Tony said flippantly.

Hiccup mumbled something, probably in Norse since Tony couldn't understand a word of it.

"What was that?" Tony said slowly. Hiccup blinked up at him a bit.

"Wha' dads do?" the Viking yawned.

"Uh, leave. Y'know. Go away, not come back." _Of course he knows what that means._

"Oh. My dad used to do that. Then Toothless killed him."

Well, wasn't _that _just a lovely revalation. Having imparted his information, Hiccup drifted off again.

"He hit his head," Tony explained awkwardly. "probably shouldn't be letting him sleep, but what're you gonna do?"

"Wake him up?" the kid suggested.

"Yeah, yeah, smartass. You could try that, but who's to say he won't kill you accidentally with his ninja-Viking skills?" Tony argued. Harley shrugged, looking up at him with a ridiculous, puppy-eyed expression. "What're you looking at me like that for? Ugh, fine. Fine. I'll wake him up. But if he kills me, I'll kill you."

Tony shook Hiccup's shoulder. Disappointingly, the Viking didn't have any ninja skills to attack Tony with. Instead, he jerked upwards, flailed hilariously, then slipped right off the sofa.

"See, ninja skills." Tony grinned. "Seriously though, you okay?"

Hiccup shook his head a bit. "Uh, yeah. What's going on... and who's your new friend?"

"Oh, this guy?" Tony jerked his head back in Harley's direction. "He's the guy who's gonna be helping us. So, Mr Helper, I'm gonna need a laptop, a digital watch, a cell phone, the pneumatic actuator from your big bazooka over there, a map of town, a big spring, and a tuna sandwich."

"Why should I help you?" Harley asked uncertainly.

"Hey, who's your bully?" Tony asked. From the way the kid's expression turned from doubt to suspicion, he knew he was onto a winner. "They pick on you at school?"

"How'd you know that?"

_Kid, you're either a bully or the bullied. It's not hard to tell the difference here. _"Here." Instead of answering, Tony grabbed a piece of the Iron Man armour and tossed it over to Harley. He caught it, fumbling for a second to secure his grip. "Use this on them. It's a... well, it's non-lethal. Probably. On adults. They won't be bullying you anymore, though!" he finished brightly.

The kid turned the red-painted metal over in his hands thoughtfully. A grin spread over his face, and he nodded.

"That's great!" Tony returned the smile. "Now, you know what I'm thinking?"

The kid shook his head expectantly.

"Where's my sandwich?"

* * *

Five minutes later, Tony was taking the last few bites of his sandwich. Hiccup had one of his own, but it had remained mainly untouched. He wasn't a fan of whatever the weird filling was, and he felt a bit sick at the moment, anyway.

_"What's the plan?" _Hiccup asked. Might as well get a bearing - now that he was awake, he was doubtlessly going to be dragged into another disaster. _Why do I have such amazing luck?_

_"Well, this was the place of that first explosion. Junior here - yeah, I'm calling you Junior now. Consider it an honour, or suck it or whatever - where was I? Yeah, Junior's gonna take us there. He knows the place, apparently." _Tony rattled off, waving the last bit of sandwich in the air as he spoke. At the end of the sentence, he popped the bread into his mouth.

It sounded fun. The kind of high-likelihood-of-someone-getting-injured fun that was pretty much the norm in his life. _Oh well, _he pushed himself up off the sofa, setting the sandwich down beside him. "Shall - whoops, uh - _shall we get going then?"_

_"Yep." _Tony popped the 'p', dusting the crumbs off his hands. _"So, Junior?"_

* * *

The bomb site was practically untouched, not quite cordoned off but certainly deliberately arranged. The flickering of the small candles surrounding the walls was the only light provided to illuminate the shadows on what remained of the walls.

Not at all depressing, oh no. Tony sat on the outskirts of the shrine, and his two younger companions followed suit.

"So, there were five people in the house?" he asked, after a quick shadow count.

"Six." Harley corrected. "Including the guy with the bomb."

Well, that just didn't make sense. Tony voiced the sentiment. "I mean, why doesn't Chad Davis get a shadow?" It was possible that it was just on a bit of wall that had collapsed in the explosion, but...

"People say it's 'cause he didn't go to heaven." Harley supplied. "'Cause he killed them all, he went to hell."

"You believe that?" _Dear god don't let me be working with an idiot._

The kid just shrugged. "'S what people say." he said simply.

"Well, doesn't mean it makes sense." Hiccup supplied. "The shadows, aren't they caused 'cause the bodies shielded the wall from the heat of the explosion? In which case, he should have had a shadow, even if he was really close to the bomb. The room's small enough that he'd be close to the wall anyway."

Tony nodded approvingly. "Right. So, if he _should've _left a shadow, why didn't he?" By now, it was looking like there was an answer. A quite obvious and logical one to think of, which didn't necessarily mean it should be possible, or that it made any sense. "Y'see, there's only one other thing here that didn't leave a shadow. And that's the bomb."

"That doesn't make any sense." Harley dismissed. Whether it was denial, or he really thought that the idea being proposed was a stupid one, Tony wasn't sure. "You're saying that the guy was the bomb. That isn't possible... right?"

"It probably shouldn't be," Hiccup said tiredly, "but by now, I wouldn't really be surprised. Impossible isn't really a thing that tends to hold people back."

They lapsed back into silence after that, watching the light dance on the wall. Tony felt his eyes start to droop, exhaustion taking hold again. Hiccup's bobbing head indicated that he was felling much the same.

"Y'know what this reminds me of?" Harley said suddenly. Tony shook his head, indicating for him to continue. Hiccup didn't respond, and a light, questioning prod from Tony revealed that he'd drifted off again. "That wormhole, in New York."

Tony stiffened, exhaling sharply. He hadn't really had the time to think about his casual trip to space, but he was getting the feeling that that was a good thing. "I think you should shut up now." he said, deliberately casual.

"Does it remind you?" The kid kept on prodding. Tony shook his head tersely.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Are those aliens coming back?"

"Maybe." Tony's breath was getting shorter. Stupid kid had to bring it up; now it was all he could think about. "Can you stop now?" He shivered involuntarily, the sharp night's air not helping him bring his racing mind back to the present.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes." _Fuck. _"No. Just - I just need a moment." Thankfully, Harley finally took the hint and left Tony to breathe. Slowly, he regained his senses, bringing himself out of the wormhole, away from the battle, the missiles and the might-be-dying breaths. "Right." he said, opening his eyes again. Everything was in pretty much the same position, except Hiccup was even more slumped over now.

"Should we wake him up?" Harley asked, glancing over at Hiccup. Tony nodded, and the kid reached out a hand to shake the Viking awake.

There was no need to, as Hiccup sat up abruptly before Harley could touch him. He let out a strangled cry as he jolted forwards, something in Norse that Tony had come to recognise as the sound of the Night Fury's name.

Tony allowed Hiccup a few seconds to catch his breath - he'd needed the same a few seconds previously - before he turned back to the kid.

"So, this bomb-guy. Any relatives?"

"Uh... his mom." Harley supplied awkwardly, and it occurred to Tony that he was probably freaked out by everyone's panicking. Well, tough to be him; Tony was freaked out, too.

"Mrs Davis? Where's she?"

Harley pointed down the road. Tony followed his finger to find one of the bars on the main street. "Where she usually is."

"See, now you're being useful." Tony grinned, standing up and offering out a hand to help Hiccup do the same.

_Time to get some answers._

* * *

They left Harley outside the bar. Mainly, it was too dangerous for a kid to be in there. Hiccup had no idea how old the boy was, but Tony seemed to have an inkling, or perhaps an actual figure, and Hiccup trusted his judgement.

Honestly, he wished he was sat outside with the kid. Sure, it was freezing, and the bar provided much more warmth than even the shed they'd found, but it was buzzing with activity, and Hiccup really wasn't up for a lot of social interaction.

_"Do you see her?"_ he was barely up for speaking English. If JARVIS was still functioning as a translator, he would've given up on the language ages ago.

_"Yep."_ Tony gave a subtle nod over to the corner of the room. _"__We'll be in and out in no time."_ he assured, realising that Hiccup was barely awake. _"__Ten minutes, tops."_

Hiccup shrugged, not protesting as they made their way over to the table. Tony started saying something that he couldn't concentrate on enough to translate, but it appeared to be directed at the woman, so he wasn't too bothered.

He let his mind wander even further as Tony continued talking. It appeared that the woman was expecting someone, and Tony was managing to convince her that he was the one she was waiting for. _Good for him, _he thought, forcing himself not to blink as his vision started blurring again; there'd be time for sleep when he _wasn't _about to give up Tony's ruse.

Tony's acting skills were paying off; the woman slid an envelope across the desk. It looked official, and Tony checked the contents quickly before nodding to the woman.

Across the bar, another woman had just entered. Despite his overall confusion and lack of coherent thought, Hiccup was pretty sure that she was bad news. It wasn't just the dangerous glint in her eyes - he'd seen it enough in people to recognise it straight away, now - but the fact that her eyes had immediately settled on Tony and Mrs Davis. And she didn't look pleased.

"Tony..." Hiccup nudged he billionaire, but he was too busy talking to the woman. _"Tony." _he tried again, receiving the same result.

Now that he was actively speaking in English, though, he was translating the conversation a bit easier. Tony was talking about the files, and Mrs Davis had just snatched them back up. _"There's a woman -"_

The warning came to late, as the woman - Hiccup was sure she hadn't been that close before; how had she moved so fast? - grabbed Tony's wrists, dragging him in a downwards spiral down to the table and clinking metal restraints onto his hands as she did. _Handcuffs, _Hiccup recognised.

Tony grabbed the dog tags - when had they appeared? - from the table and shoved them into his pocket.

Another man was approaching now, without the level of caution that Hiccup thought should really be being exercised.

_"Hey, what the hell's all this about?" _he asked. It was a question Hiccup quite wanted to know the answer to, too. The woman dropped Tony on the floor and stood up straighter.

_"It's called an arrest." _she said coolly. _"Sheriff, right?"_

The man nodded. _"And who're you?"_

_"Homeland security." _The woman flashed a badge, and the man nodded slightly at it. _"So, we okay here?"_

The sheriff laughed, and Hiccup tuned out of their conversation again to check on Tony. He was making violent head jerks towards Mrs Davis, who could apparently understand what he meant, because she took the folder from the table and tossed it casually under the nearest table. A bit of an odd thing to do for someone who she'd just met and had no reason to trust, and Hiccup found himself wishing that he'd listened to their conversation a bit more.

Tony wasn't paying attention to that anymore. Hiccup followed his gaze to see... the fake badge - it had to be fake, she couldn't actually be any kind of authority figure - was glowing. It was a glow that Hiccup recognised. One of heat. But where was that heat coming from, and why wasn't the woman reacting?

Unless _she _was the source of the heat...

Her conversation with the sheriff came to an abrupt end when she shoved the badge in his face. Someone screamed, but it did nothing to help the man. A glowing hand punched into his stomach, and he sank to the floor.

Before Hiccup had time to register that information Tony was running, grabbing Hiccup to get him to follow. He felt the adrenaline kicking in and giving him the strength to keep up, mind reeling and struggling to keep up as his instincts took over.

The woman was chasing them now, and she had a gun. Hiccup was starting to catch up mentally on the situation - and when had they managed to get into a building?

They were being shot at, but thankfully they'd managed to duck under a counter to escape the hail of bullets. They struck glass instead, sending shards raining down on Tony and Hiccup - but apparently they were already covered in glass, and Hiccup was starting to understand how they'd gained access to the building.

_"Get out." _Tony whispered to Hiccup. _"I have a plan," _he continued, not allowing room for protest, _"well, a bit of a plan, and it involves explosions, so you need to -"_

His rushed explanation was cut off as the woman grabbed him, glowing hands touching his face. Hiccup scrambled back as the two tousled, cutting his hands on the glass pieces as he threw himself backwards into a storeroom of sorts.

A burst of flame erupted in the other room, and Tony rushed through the doorway and over to Hiccup. _"Get out!" _he said again, dashing around the room and setting up his plan. The woman walked through the wall of fire like it was nothing, taunting Tony with words Hiccup was once again struggling to understand.

Tony responded, jerking Hiccup upwards and out into the street and leaving the woman behind.

"What..." Hiccup fell back down as Tony let go of him. The billionaire was shielding himself behind a door of some sorts.

The explosion - looks like Tony's plan was a good one - hit as Hiccup ducked onto the floor, sending out a pulse of heat and blowing Hiccup backwards.

It was unfair, Hiccup decided, that he had to be knocked away by an explosion again. Then he hit the ground, and he wasn't thinking much of anything.

* * *

Pepper wasn't really sure what was going on. First she'd been calming a downed dragon, then Maya was talking about taking them to a safe place, and now she was in a hotel room.

The only problem in the scenario, really, if one avoided the obvious dead/missing boyfriend issue, was that she was currently being pinned to the wall.

Well, it was a consolation to know that her ability to sense creeps hadn't been impaired any.

"Run!" she shouted, and she wasn't sure whether she was telling Maya or the dragon. "It's -"

"Hey Pepper." Aldrich said casually, turning to Maya, who hadn't run, had only walked - she looked calm, but Pepper couldn't really see through the choke hold she was in - towards her boss. It was hard to hear anything, but Pepper could tell that Maya was talking now, locked in conversation with a murderer.

"-need Stark," Pepper heard Maya say. She stained her ears for the end of the sentence, "he just lacked a decent incentive." Maya didn't really sound like she was bargaining for her life. In fact, she seemed to be gesturing to Pepper as she said incentive...

_Oh._

Toothless had clearly come to the same conclusion - dragons were, surprisingly, capable of intelligent thought - and was shifting a suspicious gaze between the intruder and Maya. He was growling quietly, teeth bared.

"- and now we _have _leverage." Maya had continued speaking as Pepper was distracted, and she'd just settled it. She was a traitor. Well, technically, she _wasn't _a traitor, but that made her a traitor. It was all very confusing, and Pepper found herself wishing - certainly not for the first time, and probably not for the last - that Tony had never been kidnapped, had never had his revelations and become a superhero. But that would change what she loved about him, and she wouldn't trade that for the world. Not really.

_"Run, _Toothless!" she yelled, not feeling as embarrassed as she perhaps should have for someone who was shouting at a dragon. For his part, Toothless understood her, or at least the desperation in her tone. He darted quite easily past Maya, but was stopped quite abruptly by Aldrich's free hand, which was glowing.

"You'll cooperate, if you know what's good for you." Aldrich said smoothly. Apparently, he had no inhibitions about talking to dragons. "Anything you do can only hurt Pepper here."

Toothless growled uselessly, looking between Pepper and Aldrich for a moment before deciding to comply.

"Good dragon." Aldrich gave a sickly smile. "Now, let's get going."

* * *

Nick Fury wasn't one to be kind, or considerate, or even facilitating. Not unless he deemed it absolutely necessary. Clint knew this from many years under his watchful eye, and yet the fact was being destroyed right in front of him.

There wasn't any reason to believe that the team needed to be treated gently, yet Fury's sarcastic remarks had been at a minimum all day, and he hadn't given the nit-picking criticisms during the debriefing.

Natasha, Clint could tell, shared his sentiment in being confused. Concerned, even, though the change it made in her expression was minimal.

Right now, Fury was nattering on about facts, numbers of robots they'd faced and what could be assumed about the fights that would follow - because they _would _follow - and Clint was thoroughly sick of it. He was half tempted to just cut him off by ending the video call they were currently sharing, but he was pretty sure that that'd put a rather swift end to the streak of niceness.

"Are you going to tell us why we're all suddenly made of glass, or are we supposed to guess?" he asked lightly. Fury looked up abruptly, but his expression stayed exactly the same. So, he was pretty shocked.

"You don't know?" he asked, in a strangely serious tone, like he was working something out. His head tilted almost unperceptively; something was starting to make sense.

"Evidently," It was Steve who continued talking, "or we wouldn't be asking."

"So, you still," Fury paused slightly, calculating the best way to give his information. But _what _was he about to tell them? "aren't aware of the events at Malibu?"

"No." Astrid spoke for the Vikings, who recognised the tone and the location. Hiccup and Tony were there, and something bad had happened. "What happened?"

Fury didn't respond. Instead, he pulled up a screen - courtesy of Stark Industries - and tapped something into the keyboard. A few seconds later, articles and videos popped up in the masses. Fury selected the top result, a video, and left it to play.

The scene he presented to them was one of utter chaos. A house sliding into the ocean while under fire from missile-toting helicopters wasn't something one saw everyday, even in a place like SHIELD. What disturbed Clint, though, was the occasional flashes of red and gold visible in the building. He sent a quick glance over to Natasha, which confirmed what he already knew.

The house on the screen was Stark's mansion.

_"Wait, so - that's where Hiccup was, right?" _Snotlout confirmed, just starting to catch on. _"But, that means that he's -"_

Fury nodded grimly just as Astrid cut in with a "No, he's not."

"I don't think he could survive that." Fishlegs said doubtfully. _"I mean, look at all the fire. That entire building collapsed in on itself."_

"Don't forget that he has Toothless." Astrid persisted.

"_Had _Toothless." Fury corrected. _Oh no - _was the dragon dead too? "He managed to escape. If Hiccup _is _still alive, he doesn't have a dragon with him." With a click, the call ended.

Astrid pondered that for a second. The Vikings behind her shifted uncomfortably, none of them quite sure what to make of the situation.

Eventually: "He's not dead." Astrid said decisively.

"How'd you know?" Clint couldn't help himself ask. Natasha gave him a sharp look - _'don't say that' - _to which he responded by raising his hands in mock surrender - _'what? It's a perfectly valid question.'_

"He..." Astrid trailed off. _"He's -" _she had, apparently, decided that whatever she wanted to say was better said in Norse, _"I know he'll be fine. Even if he isn't with Toothless. _Because _he isn't with Toothless. He doesn't know if Toothless is safe or not, and I know that he won't stop until he knows that Toothless is safe."_

Clint tilted his head to the side in a slight shrug. "So, if he isn't dead, when do we start looking for him?"

"The question is where." Eret piped up. "After all, I'm pretty sure we're all in agreement to start right now."

"I'll see what I can dig up from JARIVS," Bruce offered, "and someone can let Fury know we're taking a holiday, in the meantime."

* * *

**So, to reiterate, feedback please! Even just a couple of words could help a lot.**


	9. Why Don't You Build Something?

**A/n: I'm back! Yeah! Still alive and writing, after an absence of more than two weeks...  
Sorry about that one, by the way. Real life shenanigans were being a big distraction and demotivator.  
But I've written this, and the situation's (mostly) sorted out, so hopefully you'll see an increase in updates. We'll see.  
I'd like to say that this is an extra long, extra amazing chapter to make up for the lack of updates, but alas, it's probably going to be a bit rubbish cause I haven't looked over it. I'm just throwing it at you as soon as possible, really.  
Anyway, won't keep you waiting any longer. On with the show!**

* * *

This was not a good time for sleeping, but _some asshole - _Tony paused his inner monologue to glare accusingly in Hiccup's direction - had decided to take a nap anyway.

Okay, so it wasn't as much a nap as it was being knocked out, but Tony still considered it highly thoughtless and a bit selfish. Now he had to take out the other bad guy he'd seen on the street, keep Hiccup safe _and _stop the kid from getting hurt.

Though, given the dazed state the Viking had been in prior to his early bedtime, Tony figured that he probably wouldn't have been much help anyway.

The hissing of melting metal wrenched Tony from his thoughts, bringing him back to the present with a lovely reminder that he still had to take action: the man who was responsible for Happy's hospitalisation was running a glowing red hand up and down a nearby water tank.

The support was glowing the same fiery amber now, and Tony knew what was coming next. _Why do those things have to be built on stilts? _he complained inwardly, grabbing Hiccup up into an awkward grasp - that metal leg made even the scrawny Viking rather heavy - and breaking into a run.

The other man must've noticed him, because Tony heard the metal twist down, then the tell-tale creaking sound that preempted gravity taking control.

The water tank fell with a crash, and the thin lining wasn't enough to keep it from bursting open upon impact with the ground. Tony clung onto a nearby fence for dear life, desperately hoping that the wave crashed over him before he'd need to take a breath.

The fence fell, and something else replaced it to hold Tony in place - he was trapped under it, he could tell; his left foot couldn't move anymore. At least now the worst of the wave had passed, and his head was easily held above the water. Hiccup was still next to him, less limp now and spluttering back into awareness.

Well, it was one way of waking him up.

Tony gave his leg an experimental jerk, wincing in discomfort as pain flared through it. He continued his tugging efforts, more forcefully this time, when the man came back into view, quietly smug as ever and... holding something - no, some_one - _in a rather tight grip.

Tony wasn't sure whether to be scared or relieved that it was Harley. It wasn't good that the boy was in the situation, but at least it was somebody who trusted Tony. He could use that to save them both.

"Mr Stark..." Harley said, still writhing in the man's firm grip, now positioned on his lap similarly to how one sat on Santa's lap as a child. The boy looked, and sounded, close to tears. "I'm _so _sorry."

Tony's gut wrenched at the apology. "You have _nothing _to apologise for." he said between breaths, not pausing in his escape attempts.

The other man watched the exchange and laughed. He bounced Harley on his knee slightly. "What do you want for Christmas?" he asked mockingly. "I know what I want: that damn file."

He looked over at Tony expectantly. Still struggling against the metal pinning him down, Tony frowned. What could he...

"You remember what I told you about bullies?" Tony asked slowly, looking pointedly at Harley. The boy nodded, and Tony felt he had to give him credit; he was holding up well, considering the situation.

Harley reached for the Bully Buster - okay, so that wasn't what it was actually called, and it was a bit of a rubbish name, but Tony maintained that he was under a bit of pressure, so it was really the best he could come up with - and activated it, close enough to the other man's head that he probably would've been killed were it not for his irritating regenerative ability.

While the man staggered back, face already glowing with the strange healing power, Tony grabbed a nearby piece of metal and used it to lift up the piece of fence, just enough to wriggle his foot out. He took a moment to grab Hiccup, then hefted himself and the Viking up and out of the scrap pile.

The bald man was coming round now, almost fully recovered, and Tony grabbed his repulsor and fired it directly at the man's still-healing face. Not taking the time to make a witty comment, he grabbed Hiccup again and ran, half-dragging half-leading the Viking away from the danger.

* * *

After the initial decision to start up a search for their missing team members, the remaining Avengers and Vikings wasted no time in taking action. Natasha, who revealed herself to be quite the proficient hacker, got to work on worming some information out of JARVIS. There was nothing much else to do, save scour the internet for any sign of a conspiracy theory, for the rest of the group.

"Where's Toothless?"

The room's inhabitants - save for Natasha - turned to stare at Fishlegs.

"He has a point." Clint shrugged, leaning up slightly from the sofa he was currently lounging on. "Fury said he wasn't with Hiccup. So where _is _he?"

"Does Fury know?" Astrid wondered.

"He probably would." Bruce said with a grimace. "SHIELD's good at knowing everything."

"I'll call him." Steve decided, mobile already in hand.

As Steve left the room to have more privacy in his call, Clint flopped back down. "They might not know." he pointed out, head brushing the floor. "How do you even keep track of a dragon?"

_"Bearing in mind that the dragon is flightless, it's probably pretty easy." _Eret reasoned. _"If he could fly, Toothless would be with Hiccup."_

_"So the tailfin was damaged in the attack..." _Astrid put a hand to her mouth contemplatively as she paced the room. _"Does anyone know how to make a replacement?" _She looked searchingly over at Snotlout and Eret, who shrugged.

Bruce perked up at the question. "When he was showing Tony how he made it, Hiccup put the plans up in the lab. It'll still be in the database, so it'll be easy to replicate. Even improve." The scientist stood up, moving for the door. "I'll get started on that. Tell me if anything comes up."

As Bruce approached the door, Steve walked through. The phone was still held in a loose grip by his ear. "Fury gave me a location: they're staying in a hotel near Malibu."

"Gimmie the co-ordinates." Clint said, rolling off the sofa and landing next to an abandoned pad. Steve reeled off the information, and Clint searched it.

"Right, so we're looking for a nice looking place. Bit big, but Fury gave us a room number. Shouldn't take us too long to get there."

Steve nodded. "So, everyone mount their dragons?"

* * *

After retrieving the file seeing Harley off - making sure to throw in just the right mix of sass and assholery - Tony took to the road. He wasn't sure yet where he was going, but he knew that he needed to get as far away from Tennessee as possible - they'd have a harder time finding him, and the kid wouldn't be in as much danger.

Hiccup threw a wrench in that plan quite quickly. It was actually quite slow, the way he sluggishly fought his way back to consciousness after getting soaked, but it wasn't long into the journey before he became aware of his surroundings. He took a moment to gather his thoughts, switched to English - an action which was, thankfully, much easier than the last time - and spoke.

_"Where are we?" _he asked, recognising the interior of a car but unable to see out of the window - it had been dark when he'd last been awake, so either a full day had passed or he'd only been out for a few minutes.

_"Not sure." _If Tony was surprised or relieved to see Hiccup awake, he hid it well. _"Not Tennessee."_

Hiccup nodded slightly, tentatively, and was impressed when the action didn't send a searing pain to his head.

_"Do we have a plan?"_

Tony stiffened. _"No."_

Ah. Well, that was surely a recipe for success.

Hiccup shifted slightly in his seat, noticing, now that he wasn't facing the window, the file on the dashboard. A file that they'd spent quite a bit of effort trying to retrieve, so it was a good thing they'd managed it in the end.

He picked it up, looking over the cover. It was a military file, belonging to the soldier who'd blown up the house. He flipped the page over and started reading.

_"AIM?" _he read aloud, frowning slightly, _"What does that mean?"_

_"It's a company." _Tony supplied tersely, not taking his eyes off the road.

_"Then what's it doing on this guy's file?"_

Tony swerved off to the side jerkily, taking a deep breath before rolling to a smooth stop. _"It's not supposed to be read that way," _he explained, _"it's meant to say missing in... action..."_

Tony was now looking properly at the stamped words. _"It looks like it was stamped on this side..." _he said, for his own benefit, _"but... if that _is _AIM..."_

He shook his head and sat back up. _"It wouldn't make any sense." _Hiccup still wasn't sure whether he was being talked to or not. _"Why would AIM be involved in these... explode-y people?"_

_"I don't know." _Tony admitted. He shook his head. _"How are we even supposed to find out? We can't call SHIELD; they don't exactly have a public complaints number... me and my big mouth ruled out the tower pretty quickly..."_

_"This guy is from the military, right?" _Hiccup thought aloud. _"Okay, so... Pepper won't know anything... do you think she'd be able to find out?"_

_"Military?" _Tony perked up at that, suddenly alert. Hiccup smiled slightly at the thought of something possibly going right for once. _"God I'm so stupid - Rhodey! Hang on a minute..." _he plucked the phone from the dashboard and tapped a few keys.

_"Yes?"_

Hiccup frowned; this was a new voice - were there more Avengers that he just hadn't heard of yet?

_"You ever had a chick straddling you and then suddenly she's glowing from the inside out, kind of a... bright, orange..."_

"What?" Hiccup glanced over at Tony, who was now casually shifting through the military file.

_"Yeah, I've had that. Look, who is this?"_

_Well, isn't that what we all want to know?_

_"It's me pal." _Tony didn't break in his stride for the question. _"What're you doing right now?"_

_"No - who is this?" _Hiccup cut Tony off, _"Sorry, I'm Hiccup, you're..." _He trailed off questioningly, looking over to the phone.

_"Cornel James Rhodes. Tony, who is that?" _the man on the other end of the phone asked.

_"Gosh guys, you're ruining this conversation." _Tony moaned petulantly, but still answered: _"Hiccup is this Viking guy from through the portal. He's been living in the tower with his dragon buddies while we figure out how to send him back. Rhodey is an old friend - military guy - who's gonna help us get our info on AIM."_

_"No, who is he really?" _'Rhodey' asked laughingly.

_"He was telling the truth." _Hiccup deadpanned. _"Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, Chief of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe, at your service. Now, what's this about AIM?"_

For his lack of acceptance previously, Rhodey warmed up to the Viking idea with only a fait snigger at hearing Hiccup's full title. _"AIM? They're the guys that did the big 'Iron Patriot' redesign."_

Tony's eyes widened at that, while Hiccup squinted - another thing he didn't know. _"Iron Patriot?"_

_"Suit name, I guess." _Tony supplied. _"Originally called War Machine - which is a much cooler name - apparently Killian's been messing with more than just people."_

_"So I'm not the only one you made a suit for?" _Hiccup whiled jokingly. _"And here I thought I was special."_

Before Tony could respond, with what Hiccup could only assume was going to be an equally jokey comeback, Rhodey brought the conversation back on track. _"I'm actually a bit busy right now, making friends in Pakistan. Wha'd'you want?"_

_"I'm gonna need your login." _Tony said, scrunching the file up and tossing it behind him.

_"Same as it always is: war machine 68."_

_"And password please."_

_"Well look, I gotta change it every time you hack in..." _Rhodey started, then sighed. _"Alright... war machine rocks, with an x, all caps."_

At that, Hiccup let out a choked laugh. _War machine rox? _he continued laughing mentally while Tony recomposed himself. Oddly enough, the sound of laughter was also coming through from the phone. Had Rhodey been being serious when he'd talked about making friends? The click of what Hiccup had come to recognise as a gun quickly shut off the laughter from the other end.

_Interesting way to make friends..._

_"Yeah... laugh it up..." _Rhodey said irritably. _"So, is that all you need, or..."_

_"Yeah. I'll leave you to your friends then." _Tony grinned as he tapped out of the call. _"Right," _he turned to Hiccup, _"we need to get to an internet connection."_

Tony took a stronger grip on the wheel before yanking it sideways, slamming Hiccup unexpectedly into the car window sa he drifted around and continued driving in the direction he'd just come from.

* * *

Getting into the air took a bit longer than expected. Firstly, they had to recreate the tailfin. With modern technology, it didn't actually take very long, but they'd had to re-recreate it and re-recreate it, since _someone - _Astrid sent an accusatory glance over at Bruce as she thought - had been stupid enough to give them to the twins.

Once out of the tower, the dragons and riders had headed up into the clouds. Apparently, dragons weren't very common in New York, so they had to be kept out of sight. Clint used something he called a 'sat nav, but actually good' - Astrid doubted that that was the actual name - to direct them. It was quite an amusing contraption; it sprouted out instructions in a voice Natasha and Clint took turns in imitating - "take the next right over the cliff", "you have reached your destination. _But I'm in a field! _You have _reached your destination."_

"Are we nearly there yet?" Snotlout asked. Astrid shook her head; it was the fifth time he'd asked that in as many minutes, and the answer was still a resounding "no" from the rest of the group.

"You sure we aren't?" Ruffnut asked, pointing downwards. "Looks like we're in a place."

_How specific. _Astrid looked down despite her eye roll, and was surprised to see that Ruffnut was _right._ Not that it was exactly hard, given the vagueness of her statement, but from someone who was well known for their stupidity - and the pride they had in their lack of conventional intellect - it was rare that a comment that actually made sense would ever arise.

"Is this the right place?" Astrid asked, looking over to a dumbfounded Clint and Natasha for confirmation.

"Yes..." Clint frowned, "but this thing says it should take another hour at least..."

"Well, when you compare it to how wrong these things usually are..." Natasha shrugged. She turned to face the rest of the group. "Right. We have to get down there without anyone noticing. On dragons, that's gonna be a problem. Anyone got any stealth stuff we can use?"

"Not really." Astrid admitted, looking over at the others. "Toothless and Hiccup always go on the stealth missions, and even then they always go at night." She smiled slightly as she remembered one of their stealth training exercises - it had been held in the middle of the day, so Hiccup had been useless at it.

"Right. Well, we should probably send just one dragon down there, and the rest of us can stay put." Steve suggested, squinting down. "We'll need a Viking to get the tailfin on Toothless - anyone who knows how to do that?" Eret held up a hand to volunteer, and Steve nodded. "Good. An Avenger should go down for Pepper -"

"Me." Natasha nodded. "I know her from a previous mission."

"Okay, so Natasha and Eret can go down on... which is the fastest?"

"That'd be Stormfly." Astrid stood up on the dragon's back and beckoned Eret over. "I'll be on Skullcrusher for the time being then?"

Eret nodded. Astrid stood up jumping off Stormfly to be caught by Skullcrusher a few feet into her descent. Eret rolled off his dragon's back to land neatly on Stormfly, who was already making her way down.

_'Remember to stay hidden!' _Astrid advised as her dragon disappeared through the cloud layer.

* * *

"It's just gonna take a few minutes," Tony explained, "you might as well stay here and -"

"And let you have all the fun?" Hiccup deadpanned, staring at Tony. "Nah, I think I'll go with you. I can keep watch, right?"

"Oh, yeah, and people aren't gonna question the totally-not-suspicious-in-any-way one-legged guy just casually hanging around outside the van, are they?" Tony muttered, but didn't stop Hiccup from following. "Don't actually keep watch," he advised as they approached the TV crew, "you might as well come in with me."

Hiccup nodded, and shut the doors behind Tony as they oh-so-stealthily entered the van. It was a typical camera van, with various screens depicting the event being televised - some sort of pageant, apparently - and a laptop in the far - not exactly _far; _the van itself couldn't have been more than a few metres across - corner.

"Okay, this should only take a bit." Tony repeated, glancing back to the door before he sat in front of the laptop.

"I think someone's -" Hiccup started saying, and Tony looked up from the laptop - it didn't have a good enough internet connection; it was lucky that Hiccup was there, after all - just in time to watch the door open and a man come into view.

"Yeah, I'm just putting some stuff back in the van, then I'm -" The man was sturdier than both Tony and Hiccup - not that Tony was really surprised by that - and sported a beard. Tony could see the similarities between it and his own - maybe he had a chance -

"Mom, I'm gonna have to call you back." And, just _great, _he'd spotted them. The man turned his phone off, holding it in a tight grasp as he gaped over at Tony. "Tony Stark is in my van."

Well, maybe he _would _be able to use it to his advantage. "Yep, that's me." he said quietly, trying to shush the overexcited man with calming hand actions. "Now, shut up - come in, shut the door."

"Tony Stark." the man repeated. "In my van."

"Yep, we get that now." Tony rolled his eyes. "Right, okay..."

"I'm Gary." the man - Gary - introduced before Tony could think of anything to say - "I knew you weren't dead," he continue, surprisingly conversationally, "wow. Are you here on a mission?"

Finally, something he could capitalise on. "Yep." Toy agreed quickly. "Me and my friend here, Hiccup." At this, Hiccup gave an awkward wave, "And we need your help."

Gary took in a deep breath. "Wow." he said, staring at Hiccup now. "Wow." _Can he even say anything else? _"I am _freaking. Out. _And, I don't wanna make things awkward, you know, but... I have styled my _entire look _on you. I'm a big fan."

"I can tell..." Hiccup muttered. He went unnoticed - or ignored, perhaps - by Gary.

"I... the beard," Gary gestured to his face - _knew it - _and moved his free hand up to his hat, "the rest of my hair too, but it's not styled - no gel -"

"Okay," Tony cut the man off before they could end up on another tangent, "I need you to -"

"And, look, I've got this tattoo!

_Oh, god. _Gary rolled his sleeve up to reveal a rather shoddy tattoo of Tony's face, which Hiccup started sniggering at. Tony shot him a look - _shut up._

"It's you!" Gary revealed gleefully - _as if I didn't know that already - _and started to poke at it. "It's not perfect - it's actually based off a doll I made, so..."

_And, we're stopping there. _"Okay." Tony said, forcefully enough this time for Gary to actually listen. "I'm on a mission here, top secret, and I need your help." Gary nodded, hooked on his every syllable, "I need you to go on top of your van here, increase the connection. Think you can do that?"

Gary nodded, then dashed out of the van. The two remaining men stood awkwardly for a second, then:

"Wow. And I thought _my _fans were bad..." Hiccup said, diffusing the tension. Tony nodded, uttered a sarcastic comment and returned to work.

It didn't take long, with the username and password already available, to 'hack in' to Rhodey's account - Tony made a mental note to chastise his friend for using such dated terminology once this whole thing blew over. After that, it was a simple matter of hacking into AIM's main server and having a good snoop. A lot of videos were immediately available, and Tony pulled them up while beckoning Hiccup over.

"What?" the Viking asked as the video started, with Killian - Tony _so _knew that he was bad news, and would be letting Pepper know that in immense detail later - talking about one of his projects, explaining something to the soldier that had died. "Hey, that's..."

"Yep." Tony nodded, pulling up another video. Killian was still talking about his invention, this time to the woman he'd fought. Only... she had a missing arm, here. The video continued to reveal a multitude of test subjects being injected with something that was causing them obvious pain, and making them glow with the same strange orange that they'd seen previously. As one of the men started to be overcome by the 'extremis', and exploded as a result, Tony decided that he'd seen enough.

"Okay, I'm just gonna set up something here so that we can get a location, and then we'll get going..."

Tony continued typing away without waiting for Hiccup's response to the information. The van shook slightly as Gary climbed down from on top of it, then the doors opened quite forcefully.

"Was that enough?" Gary asked, shutting the doors behind him with as much vigour as he'd done everything else, "I jiggled around with it just like you said, and I think it might've worked... um, Tony - Mr Stark?"

Tony hummed, wrapped up in coding and equations.

"I don't think your hiccupping friend's doing too good."

Tony hit one last button, sending JARVIS the information he'd need - the AI could take it from there - and turned to face Hiccup. Gary was right; he looked pale, stunned.

"Hey, you okay?" Tony flinched at his weak question - of course he wasn't okay.

"I... they just let him blow up," Hiccup said, hand moving to cover mouth, "didn't even care, just..." he shook his head. "I'm fine. Seen worse. Just a bit of a shock."

Tony held back his planned remark - which probably would've only served to make things worse - to let Hiccup know that he probably _wasn't _fine, and actually looked quite a bit like he was about to throw up, and instead went with "okay. Well, I'm done here, so we're going."

Without allowing Gary time to formulate a response, Tony marched over to Hiccup - because he didn't believe the young Viking's claims of being 'fine' - slid and arm around him and left the van.

* * *

Rhodey was bored. He'd had plenty of time to dwell on this fact, flying over the barren land between each potential terrorist hideout. None of them had been genuine - obviously; he was still out there looking - and he was starting to think that, perhaps, the Mandarin just wasn't out there. Where he would be otherwise, Rhodey wasn't sure, but after busting into the twentieth dusty workshop and 'liberating' another group of women, he was starting to wonder.

"Yes, you're free." he said tonelessly as the women filed past, all brushing his armour as they bustled along. "Not sure what from, but - ah!"

A sharp heat suddenly hit his side, as one of the women pushed into him forcefully. Before he could quite work out how what had just happened had happened, he was on his side, warning signs flashing around him unhelpfully as he groaned in pan and tried to get up.

The woman lifted her hijab and glared down at Rhodey, who was busily trying to work out what an American was doing in a workshop in Pakistan.

"I've got him." she spoke into a communicator of sorts, "I'll be bringing the suit to you."

"If you want this suit," Rhodey said with an effort, "you'll need to pry it from my cold, dead body."

"Well, Mr Rhodes, that's what we intend to do."

* * *

_"Have you found them yet?"_

Eret flinched as Steve's question came through.

"Not exactly..." he said slowly, still trying to take in the scene.

_"Not exactly? Try not at all."_

Natasha was right; they had checked, and this was definitely the correct room, but it was empty. Well, empty excepting the dead body on the floor of a yet-to-be-discovered hotel employee. There was no sign of a struggle, which was odd and very concerning, but it was obvious that Pepper had not left the room of her own free will. Her bag was still on the floor, room keys left on the table.

"Err... yeah." Eret suddenly wished that he'd let Astrid go down; she knew how to fit the prosthetic - not that it would've been helpful - and she was better than he was at dealing with the kind of situation he'd walked into. At least he had Natasha with him, he mused as the spy walked into the middle of the room and started checking it over with a scrutinising gaze. "Looks like they've been kidnapped, actually."

_"Kidnapped?" _Steve asked, voice showing concern. Eret laughed nervously.

"Uh, yeah. Looks like it. But hey, we can find her, right?" he asked, trying to keep up some semblance of confidence - he was getting increasingly worse at that since he'd started living on Berk, and he wasn't sure whether it was a good thing or not.

"It was that Mandarin guy everyone's been going on about, wasn't it?" Snotlout asked over the comm.

"Probably, yeah." Eret agreed. The fruit-themed terrorist had released several videos that had come up in Clint's research.

"So we just need to find out where he lives and then blast him over the edge of the world!" Tuffnut and Ruffnut enthused.

_"I'll get on that." _Clint told them. Eret nodded, despite not being in the others' view. _"You two just find what evidence you can then get back up here."_

* * *

Hiccup glanced uncomfortably over at Tony as the car started rolling again. He really _was_ fine - seeing the explosion, and the blasé way Killian let it happen, it just made him uncomfortable. Reminded him of people he'd rather forget. He chanced a glance over at Tony, whose eyes were glued to the road. It hadn't helped that Hiccup hadn't really properly recovered from the beating he'd taken - yes, he wasn't falling asleep everywhere anymore, but that didn't mean that he wasn't sore as hell. He was going to have to go and see a healer when the terrorists were beaten. Tony would too, he realised, noticing the cuts and bruises lining the genius's face.

_"I really am fine." _Hiccup offered by way of an awkward conversation starter.

_"No you're not." _Tony denied. _"You're literally still bleeding." _Was he really? Hiccup was shocked to realise that, yes, there was actually fresh blood appearing from some of the cuts on his face.

_"So are you." _Hiccup countered, not exactly sure whether or not he was actually being truthful.

_"Even if I was, I -"_

The phone rang, cutting off the conversation. Tony and Hiccup glanced at each other, before Tony reached out and accepted the call.

_"Hey Harley, what you got?" _Tony pressed a button on the phone, and Harley's voice started ringing out halfway through his sentence.

_"JARVIS is up and running again, like you said." _Hiccup glanced at Tony, who shook his head: 'I'll explain later.'

_"JARVIS? Put him on."_

There was a rustle, presumably Harley moving the phone closer to JARVIS's speakers. _"Hello sir."_

_"Hey J." _Tony laughed weakly. _"How're you doing?"_

_"I'll be doing well for a stretch," _JARVIS said. _"but sometimes I end sentences with the wrong cranberry."_

Hiccup stifled a laugh at the malfunction, and Tony shot a glare at him - 'my machine's broken; this is serious' - before speaking. _"Take all the time you need, J. But, d'you think you could tell us where the Mandarin base is?"_

Hiccup resisted the urge to say "in the fruit aisle"; he didn't think the situation really called for it, no matter how much he'd enjoy both making a pun and showing off his knowledge of society.

_"Certainly. The Mandarin base is in Miami."_

_"Uh, think you got that sentence a bit mixed up there, J. Hey kid, could ya read it off the screen for me?"_

_"JARVIS is right, Mr Stark."_ Harley's voice caused Tony to frown - Hiccup wasn't really sure why; he didn't know where Miami was. _"It says it's in Miami, Florida."_

_"Oh."_ Tony said. He slid a hand down his face, not giving a follow-up statement.

_"Is that bad?" _Hiccup asked tentatively.

_"What? No - guess not..." _Tony said, though he didn't look any less concerned. _"It's just surprising; Miami is in America. I'd expect that kinda terrorist thing to be a bit further afield."_

_"Ah." _Hiccup nodded. _"Well, makes things easier, doesn't it?" _he asked, not sure whether it actually would. _"Won't take as long to get there."_

Tony shrugged, then nodded. _"Yep. Real convenient, if a bit strange."_

_"So, we're breaking into it now?" _Hiccup asked.

Tony nodded again. _"Hey, kid, what's the suit's progress?"_

_"With charging?" _Harley checked, and Tony made a grunt of confirmation. _"It's... not charging."_

Tony took a sharp intake of breath at that, swerving the car sharply to stop by the side of the road.

_"It is, sir." _JARVIS corrected. _"It's just slow. The electricity isn't enough -"_

_"How can it not be enough? It's electricity!" _Tony slammed the car door open and sank out onto the floor outside. Hiccup lingered in his seat, not sure how to react.

_"Mr Stark, are you having an attack again?" _Harley asked, and Hiccup began to wonder what had been going on in that period of time he'd spent constantly dazed. _"But I didn't even mention New York!"_

_"And then you mentioned it, by name, while denying mentioning it..." _Tony was breathing heavily now, head in hands. Hiccup shuffled along the seats until he was half out of the car, back in the brisk night air.

_"Just... breathe." _Hiccup advised in time with Harley. Tony followed the instructions quietly.

_"What do I do now?" _he asked eventually.

_"Well, you said you were a mechanic, didn't you?"_

Hiccup wasn't sure whether he had or not, but Tony nodded. _"Yeah."_

_"Well, build something."_

* * *

**And now to answer some of the lovely reviews I've been getting and using to get a bit more writing done:**

**Not sure about Captain America, but there'll be at least one other Marvel movie getting included ;) Thor will be coming back (hint hint wink wink) after IM3 - right now he's supposed to be off sorting out the nine realms and all that pre-Thor 2 nonsense.  
I'm guessing the Civil War plot is a comics thing, in which case: sorry, I'm one of those movie-only heathens who doesn't know anything outside the MCU.  
And as for the song, we'll see. I haven't planned anything more complex than a basic outline, so I'm sure I can wheedle it in somewhere!**


	10. Tackling It With Style (Or Lack Thereof)

**A/n: hey guys! Back again, providing you with a really long chapter. And it hasn't even been that long since I put the last one out! Can I get a round of applause?  
Thought not. Ah well, thanks for the reviews (reviews are love, reviews are life) now take this chapter and read it!**

* * *

Hiccup glared into the phone. He was dressed in baggy pants - the source of his irritation, mostly, since they just _wouldn't stay on - _and a hoodie, several sizes too big, which was supposed to detract attention from himself as he wandered through the supermarket, trying to find a covert way to keep on the phone with Tony.

_"Seriously, no-one's going to look at you funny just 'cause you're calling someone." _Tony said for what was probably the hundredth time (Hiccup wasn't counting, but nor was he exaggerating; he'd been walking round for a few hours now, and the phrase was repeated in some variation every few minutes).

_"Whatever." _he countered intelligently. _"What else do I need?" Please tell me that's everything..._

_"A bottle of champagne."_

Hiccup looked flatly at the phone. _"No, anything I need for these... weapons?" _he barely remembered to whisper the last word, and had to check around quickly to see if anyone was in the vicinity who might've heard his near slip-up.

_"I _do _need it!" _Tony insisted. _"It's... uh..."_

Hiccup rolled his eyes. _"Yeah, thought not. Right, I'll go pay then, should I?" _He took a confident step forwards, pushing the trolley along with him. _"Uh, where do __I pay?"_

Tony's eye roll was practically audible. _"See, this is why _I _should've been the one to go. Or both of us could've gone - would've taken way less long."_

_"Yes, we should've sent the famous figure who's assumed dead out into a public place when it's not entirely necessary. Great idea - wonder why we didn't do that?"_

Tony sighed. _"Fine. Just go find the till, swipe the card and get back here."_

* * *

After paying for the goods, with relative success, Hiccup returned to the grimy hotel room he and Tony were sharing. The items he'd been sent to purchase lay strewn across the bed, tipped out of the plastic bags they came from in a rather careless manner. It struck Hiccup as odd - Tony usually took utmost care of all his technology - but he didn't comment; all the pieces were to be disposed after use, so it was logical to assume that they'd be less valuable than what he usually made.

Hiccup currently wasn't of any use - he wasn't familiar with any of the items and wasn't really sure what it was that Tony was trying to create, and the billionaire neither had time nor patience to explain it at present - so he had nothing more to do than contemplate useless things. _There must be something I can do..._

Useful for the upcoming break-in... it occurred to Hiccup that he didn't know anything about the hideout yet. Come to think of it, he wasn't sure that Tony did, either.

_"Have you..." _Hiccup frowned, searching for the word - it was one that, JARVIS had explained, wasn't technically the correct verb but was in common use as one anyway - _"googled it? The place we're breaking into."_

Tony laughed. _"Sorry," _he apologised as he calmed down, _"it's just - a _Viking - _saying googled! That's hilarious... Anyway, what were you - oh yeah, that's what this thing's for." _He produced the electronic screen he'd been fiddling with. _"Should be done now. You give that a shot while I mess around with all these new-fangled trinkets, eh gramps?"_

_"Nice to know I'm your replacement Steve." _Hiccup quipped as he accepted the technology, finding the search engine that had driven Tony to hysterics already up for him to tap in the co-ordinates Harley had sent them.

_"Doing a good job at it, too." _Tony grinned, taking a canister and shaking it up. _"So, got anything yet?"_

Hiccup shook his head. _"This isn't exactly your I-can-hack-SHIELD-in-seconds AI we're talking about; even getting internet connection takes a few seconds."_

Tony shuddered at the thought. _"Be glad you didn't come out of that portal in the eighties," _he said with mock sternness, _"otherwise you'd be ringing up for your wi-fi, like a heathen."_

_"What, like, hello internet people, I would like to request information on this potential terrorist hideout?" _Hiccup asked mockingly.

_"Ah, but of course sir." _Tony continued, _"Just a minute. May one be so bold as to ask why you need this information?"_

_"Oh, just trying to save the world from these guys that can heal like nobody's business. Nothing special."_

_"I see. Well, here's your site. Good day, sir."_

Hiccup grinned, then looked back down at the screen. "Holy Thor! _It worked; magic!"_

Tony laughed disbelievingly, dropping the wire he was tugging on to get a better look. _"Huh, what do you know?"_

The page Hiccup had managed to load contained a blurry map image of the compound. Though it was already of below average quality, zooming in to get a 'better' look - by the time the image was close enough to get any details, there was barely anything visible on the screen through the blocky colours that vaguely represented the ground - was an option.

_"So, how're we gonna tackle this?" _Hiccup wondered, squinting at the low-res screen.

_"Same way we tackle everything," _Tony said - Hiccup could feel an inspirational slash witty one liner coming up - _"with style."_

* * *

Quite a few miles away, a different group were completing a similar task.

"You got the location yet?" Clint asked, leaning over Natasha's shoulder as she typed furiously. He knew his way around a computer, sure, but he'd never tried his hand at serious hacking; he had no clue how far along she'd got, no matter how hard he squinted at the text boxes darting round the screen.

"Why don't you go sharpen your arrows, bird brain?"

Clint took that as the 'no' it was intended to be, and wandered off over to a different group without even making the easy comeback he had planned - 'Yeah, they could use a bit of sharpening, couldn't they, itsy-bitsy? I modelled them off your wit, you see.' - which was nothing less than a strike of genius. Truly, not even a thousand scholars given a thousand years could come up with anything to match it's amazing -

_"Watch where you're going!" _Clint's gratuitous - and perhaps a bit undeserved - self-congratulation was cut short by a rough shove from an unimpressed Snotlout. _"What're you even doing? I thought you were helping your girlfriend steal that magic map."_

Clint wasn't sure which part of that sentence to address first. Instead, he returned fire with a witty "what're _you _doing?"

Clint, like, a million, Snotlout zilch.

_"Grooming Hookfang, duh!" _Snotlout gestured to the dragon behind him, cleverly choosing not to mention Clint's choice of comeback. _"He needs to be in top condition to storm this scary guy's place!"_

_We're using the dragons for that? _"Okay then, I guess... is everyone just petting dragons?"

_"Uh... pretty much. No, wait - Ruffnut's hitting Tuffnut."_

"Great..." Clint said, in a tone suggesting that he thought the information was the exact opposite. "Well, I'll be off now. Shout if you need anything."

Snotlout nodded as Clint left. _Where to now? _he wondered. The twins were out, as were Astrid and Natasha. _Bruce? _Well, it was worth a shot.

"Hey Bruce." Clint held up a hand in a lazy wave.

"Hey." Bruce nodded in return. "So, Natasha chucked you away from the laptop?" he questioned innocently.

"Yeah." Clint watched as Bruce scratched the dragon - Skullcrusher? Skull-something, certainly - who sat in front of him. "Why's everyone petting the dragons?" he wondered aloud, taking a step forwards to join in.

"Lack of anything better to do?" Bruce shrugged. "We're at a lull in the action; only so many can be useful at once."

Clint shrugged. "Well, Natasha better get something soon. I don't like being useless."

* * *

Tony watched Hiccup take a running leap at the fence, and wasn't jealous of the younger man's agility. Not at all.

_No _you're _jealous! _Tony told the little voice in his head - an irritating one which liked to argue against him. (What a prick.) It wasn't a successful endeavour anyway, since it did nothing but give the voice more ammunition - _but I _am _you, which makes _you _jealous!_

Tony shook himself out of the mental argument and ran up to the wall - quite a nice one, befitting of the mansion they were approaching, that matched the pale, sand coloured bricks of the main house. He jumped, managing to get a grip on the wall's edge and heave himself over.

"You're missing a leg!" Tony whispered as he dropped down beside Hiccup and fell into a crouch.

"And I'm a Viking..." Hiccup shrugged as he came up to the first guard. "I fight in mid-air battles using _dragons."_

_Fair point. _Tony let the conversation drop there as he found his own security guard to take out. "Let's see who can get the most!" he called over to Hiccup as he got his taser-glove out and took out the man in front of him. It alerted the guard Hiccup was going after, but too late: the Viking had a taser-glove of his own waiting for the man as he turned round.

"Thanks," Hiccup said sarcastically, "calling out like that really helped us escape detection."

"Oh, relax!" Tony waved the concern off, "It's not like anyone saw us!"

Hiccup huffed and rolled his eyes at the statement. "I bet you just jinxed -" he stopped mid-sentence to look behind Tony and groan, "- it. Great." Hiccup sighed as he pulled a small dart-gun out of his pocket. He aimed it quickly, nailing the guard in the neck before he had a chance to do anything about the intruders he'd just noticed. The dart remained in his neck as the anaesthetic caused him to sink to the floor."

"Well," Tony began as the guard dropped, "that wasn't -"

"No." Hiccup cut him off, "We aren't getting jinxed again."

Tony rolled his eyes. "You're no fun." he pouted, and continued down the path. There weren't many more guards to speak of, none of which managed to get anywhere past the taser-glove.

The inside of the mansion didn't look quite like he was expecting. It just looked like a house. A quite normal house, with a drunk girl on the couch - scratch that, it looked like the only shady activity going on in here was drug dealing, not _terrorism._

Still, Tony forced her out, using a gun from the table as persuasion, and continued on into the house.

"Is this your average terrorist hideout?" Hiccup asked as they continued into the house, which now contained sets and scenery that Tony recognised from the videos.

Well, it was certainly the right place.

"No, not really." Tony admitted. "I haven't broken into many terrorist organisations, but this one is certainly not staying true to the stereotypes."

"Well, good for it." Hiccup said distractedly. They were out of the scenery forest now, and had come to a clearing with a bed in the middle. There was a lump in the bed - possibly the Mandarin.

Tony shushed Hiccup with a finger, then yanked the covers back to reveal... two more scantily clad women. _Great._

"Is the Mandarin even here?" Tony asked in exasperation, cut off slightly by a toilet flush.

"Uh..." Hiccup said awkwardly, pointing at a spot behind Tony.

"What is it?" Tony asked, swirling around.

It was the Mandarin.

He wasn't wearing his usual getup, but it was unmistakably him - same hair, same face, same beard... he looked a lot less impressive in real life. He was also, Tony noticed, holding his hands up in surrender, babbling on about things he could take, and - this wasn't the Mandarin. _Must be a double, certainly a fake._

"Where's the Mandarin?" Tony asked threateningly. The Mandarin knock-off didn't respond, just flailed around and backed away. _"Where's the Mandarin?" _Tony repeated, shouting now and pointing the gun directly at the other man.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, he's _here, _but he's not here." Mandarin knock-off explained.

"What do you mean?" Tony demanded. He'd now backed the man up enough that he was sat on a chair, with nowhere to run.

"It's complicated."

"Uncomplicate it." Tony shot a look back to Hiccup, "Get the ladies out."

The Viking nodded, shooing away the women, who seemed more than happy to leave.

When Tony turned back round, the Mandarin knock-off was no longer on the chair. Tony found him a few feet away, trying to crawl off, and fired a warning shot that just missed him.

"Okay, okay!" The man dashed back to his seat. "My name's Trevor, Trevor Slattery."

"What are you?" Tony asked, lowering the gun somewhat. "A decoy, a double?"

"What, you mean like an understudy? Well, absolutely not." Tony wasn't sure that he and 'Trevor' were on the same page. He put the gun back up - _maybe then he'll start making sense. _"Don't hurt the face - I'm an actor!"

_What. _Tony stared at Trevor, completely confused now. He shot a look back to Hiccup, who shrugged. "You have a minute to live, fill it with words."

"It's just a role... the Mandarin, you see, it's not real.

_What._

"Then how did you get here, Trevor?"

"Well, I had a little... problem, with, er, substances. And I ended up, um, doing things - no two ways about it - in the street, that uh, a man shouldn't do..."

"Next." Tony snapped, stealing looks over to the door. He was still thoroughly confused, and Trevor wasn't making things any clearer. Over in the corner, still making sure that nobody came in, Hiccup looked equally shocked.

"Then, they approached me about the role, and they knew about the drugs..."

"What, they said they'd get you off them?" If they had said that, they were lying - Trevor was clearly on _something._

"Said they'd give me more!" Trevor revealed happily. "And they gave me things - they gave me this palace! They gave me plastic surgery, they gave me things..." Suddenly, Trevor was snoring.

"Did you just nod off?" Tony asked incredulously. "Hey." He kicked him.

"Oh! And a lovely speedboat!" Trevor continued as if he'd never stopped. "_And, _the thing is, he needed someone! To take credit, for some 'accidental explosions.'"

_He. _Tony had a pretty good idea who that was. "Killian?" Trevor nodded. "And he created you... a custom-made terror threat." Tony backed off, sat down as Trevor carried on talking, imitating his speeches. Tony turned round to Hiccup to give him a look - _can you believe this guy? - _only to find him unconscious.

"Hiccup!" Tony stepped forwards to help his friend, but was stopped when someone grabbed him. There was just time to turn around and see the man from Tennessee before something hit him and everything went black.

* * *

Tony woke up in an awkward position. It was a while since he'd found himself good and captured, and he had to say that these were possibly the least comfortable restraints he'd ever been in.

He found it quite funny that he was tied to a bed frame - had they not had anything else to tie him to, or were they just trying to make a - no longer valid - joke?

_The world may never know._

"Not a chance of moving to first class?" he joked. It occurred to him then that he hadn't opened his eyes yet. He peeled them open quickly - it would've been terribly awkward to tell a joke to a crowd of none - and was relieved that the only person in the room with him was Maya.

Why Maya was there, exactly, he hadn't a clue. Well - she was obviously taken for her skills... thinking of which, the first time he'd met her had been at the same conference he'd met Killian at.

Maya hadn't responded yet - apparently the joke really had been as weak as it had sounded in his head (shame) - so Tony continued. He grunted and shifted his zip ties around, which apparently caught her attention more than weak attempts at humour.

"So..." he began awkwardly, "you took Killian's card." Well, it was only to be expected, even if it was a little disappointing; he hadn't taken Maya up, so it was inevitable that someone else would... _why did it have to be Kilian? _"And here we are, thirteen years later, trapped in a dungeon."

"No, _you're _stuck in a dungeon. _I'm _free to go." Maya smirked, finally standing up and moving over.

_Oh._

"Really?" It truly was a shame. "You had a lot of promise, you know. You could've... not ended up working for a psychopath, for one."

Maya looked at him disbelievingly. "Extremis is nearly stabilized," she argued, "just a few more -"

"No." Tony cut her off, a bit more roughly than necessary. "People are exploding, turning into shadows on the walls... you know, you used to have _morals. _Now look at you..."

"You know what my old man used to say to me?" Killian caught Tony's attention. He was standing on a raised platform that led to another room, leaning slightly against the handrail. He started walking down the steps, swinging a briefcase by his side. "His favourite of many sayings, really: the early bird catches the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."

Well, wasn't that just an amazing saying. Tony could really see that going far - maybe someone would actually use it someday non-ironically while also not being a total idiot! Tony decided not to comment on that, going for a simple "you're not still mad about that Switzerland thing, are you?" instead.

Killian continued talking, something about thanking and gifts and other things Tony didn't understand and didn't care to understand. "Yeah, that's great, but, uh - d'you know where Hiccup is? Viking, can't really say how high with these ties, got a metal leg?"

Killian smirked. He started prowling towards Tony as he spoke, words innocent but tone anything but. "Have you noticed an interesting common feature in all of my test subjects?" he asked. _How did he know I'd watched the videos? _Tony wondered, though the was more concerned about the link. Something told him that Killian wasn't just bringing that up for the fun of it. And since the connection was a missing limb...

"You wouldn't!" Tony gasped involuntarily, and Killian smirked.

"I would." he grinned, "and it's not the only person I'd do it to." As he spoke he rolled three small metal balls along the floor. They came to a halt beside the upturned bed frame, and when Killian pressed down on the remote he was now holding, a holographic screen sprang up showing Pepper, strapped down to a tilted table and struggling against her restraints.

Tony didn't ask how he'd managed to get Pepper, or why. It wasn't the time, and he needed to be concentrating on a way to escape. Well... he had his way, just not the exact details.

"If you'd been listening," Killian continued, increasingly impressed with himself, "you'd know that I'm giving you the gift you gave me. A nice, equivalent exchange."

"And that gift would be...?" Tony inquired, still trying to get his head around the implications of the new information he'd gathered. He doubted that Killian's reasoning would help him solve anything, but it was worth a shot.

"Desperation." Killian said plainly. "Now, of course, you'll be working for me now, to help stabilize extremis." He moved forwards suddenly, violently grasping Tony's throat and half-throttling him. "So, what kind of pay package are you looking for?"

"Let him go."

Both men turned their attention to Maya, who was now holding what looked like a stapler to her neck.

"Hold on a sec," Killian whispered, dropping Tony so that he could breathe again. "now, Maya -"

"I said _let him go." _Maya insisted, hand shaking by her neck.

"- what're you doing?"

"Twelve hundred ccs, a dose half this size and I'm dead." Maya informed them, and Tony stiffened at the thought. When he'd told her she needed morals, this wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind.

Killian, meanwhile, appeared just as calm as ever. "You see," he turned back to Tony to say, "it's times like this my temper is... tested, somewhat... Maya, give me the injector."

"When I die Killian... what happens to your soldiers, your product?" Maya asked. Killian continued pacing towards her, hands half-up as he tried to back her down. Tony watched on, helpless, as the two exchanged verbal blows.

Eventually Killian stopped, took a deep breath and looked back over at Tony.

_Oh no... he's not going to -_

Apparently he was, as Killian gave a grim smile a yanked a gun from his pocket, shooting a bullet directly into a completely astounded Maya's chest. She dropped the injector and fell back, mouth slack in shock.

"The good news is," Killian said, still maintaining his façade of calm, "a high level position has just been vacated."

Tony let out a half-laughing breath born from shock as Maya collapsed to the floor completely. "You are a maniac."

Killian shook his head, said something Tony was too distracted to hear, and left the room as though he hadn't just shot and _murdered _someone in cold blood.

"Oh, by the way," Aldrich shouted from halfway down the corridor, "we've got the Iron Patriot."

* * *

After Killian left, there wasn't much left for Tony to do other than twiddle his thumbs. Someone came in after a minute to remove Maya's body, and two more security guards arrived a few minutes later to watch him.

Considering that they were working for a terrorist organisation, they didn't seem that bad. They didn't try to make conversation, so Tony used the time to take account of his possible injuries and weapons.

As it turned out, he'd been stripped of all but clothing. Even the watch, a lovely Dora the Explorer one with very little function other than the alarm Tony had set to alert him of the suits' estimated charging time coming to an end, was no longer on his wrist. He couldn't see it, but Tony hoped that it was at least still in the room, or within earshot - he didn't want the suit turning up when he wasn't ready for it.

_Speak of the devil_ - the alarm went off, revealing the watch's position on the table behind the guards. One of them picked it up and turned it over in investigation.

"Could ya make it shut up?" the other requested. The one holding the watch gave it a quick shake. It had no effect. He then raised it a little - it looked as though he was going to drop it.

"Hey, you break it you bought it." Tony warned, as the guard did just that. The watch fell to the floor and was trodden on thoroughly. It stopped the alarm, but the watch was now quite smashed. "Son of a - hey, that wasn't mine - it's a friend's sisters."

The guard looked up at him unapologetically.

"You know what, for that, I'm gonna kill you first."

The guard laughed. "With what?"

"With... this!" Tony flicked out his hands, ready for the suit to dramatically bust through the windows and fly into his waiting palms. It didn't happen.

Instead, four dragons burst through the windows, landing in front of the guards and tossing them out of the way before they could even so much as scream.

"Well, thank god you guys showed up," Tony said, still looking over towards the window in search of his errant suit, "otherwise that would've been embarrassing."

Snotlout asked something - a question perhaps - that his lack of translator made it impossible to understand.

"Eh?"

"Wow, you _still _don't know any Norse?" Clint grinned, then continued to demonstrate his own skills in the language, in a way that made every one laugh. Laugh - at him!

"Well, I didn't really have the time." Tony explained tersely, flicking his hands out again to call the armour, "Getting blown up and having to save a Viking with some sort of concussion then getting blown up some more and watching some frankly _disturbing _videos and having a _mental fucking breakdown _at the side of the road -"

Tony paused when a hand pressed down reassuringly on his shoulder. He flinched away from the contact, breathing heavily now that he'd noticed his sudden lack of oxygen, but Steve didn't move.

"It's okay," Steve was saying, "we've got you, we're gonna get Hiccup and Pepper, just _relax." _and suddenly, Tony felt the fight, and the tension and the adrenaline just leave him, and he wanted to go _home. _Not Malibu, that place was wrecked, and he wasn't sure if he even wanted to rebuild it, he wanted to go back to the tower, pretend the whole mess had ever happened and learn Norse and joke around with his science bros...

It took Tony a while to realise that he'd gone into a mental tirade, then stop that tirade, by which point someone had released him from his zip ties, he was sat, slumped, on the floor with someone rubbing circles into his back, and something - tears, he imagined - were making slow tracks down his face.

He was crying.

Damn.

He shrugged off the hand - Eret's, surprisingly - and wiped hastily at the tears. He stole a quick glance over at Clint, and was quite surprised to discover that even the feathery asshole - and what a great nickname _that _was - wasn't laughing at him. He did look concerned though, and that was almost _worse._

"Well!" Tony said suddenly, bouncing up and pretending that it didn't make the world sway around him, "The suit should really be on the way now, but for some reason it isn't, so..." he lost the bravado for a second when he realised that he had no idea what was going to happen next. He continued a second later, clasping his hands together and using the pause as a dramatic effect, "what's the plan?"

There was a hesitance amongst the others to speak as they decided whether or not to accept Tony's one-eighty mood change, or to call bullshit and make him 'talk about his feelings' and 'hug it out'.

Astrid opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. "We don't have one." she said eventually, "It was just to get here and rescue everyone."

Apparently they'd chosen the former. _Thank God._

"Well, that means I know more than you right now!" Tony realised, grinning, "Okay, I'll fill you in later, but for now you need to know that Hiccup needs rescuing as soon as possible, and Pepper isn't here anymore. Rhodey is, though."

"Ah, okay." Steve nodded, then - "ah!" - ducked down and rubbed his head as a flying piece of metal took a glancing blow at his head.

The suits had arrived.

"About damn time!" Tony grumbled, holding out a hand to receive the first piece. "What took you so long?"

The rest of the suit arrived, slightly slower than the hand, as the others watched on, slack-mouthed.

"How did you?" Bruce asked, a question which Tony ignored expertly.

"What took you so long?" he asked again, with JARVIS there to hear the question.

"Sorry, sir, there was an obstacle."

"Obstacle?" Tony rolled his eyes, flipping the faceplate upwards. "Okay. Now: here's the plan."

* * *

_'-cup... Hiccup!'_

Hiccup's eyes snapped open as he recognised the voice calling his name. _'Toothless?' _he asked tentatively, straining to the left to see his friend.

_'Right next to you.' _Toothless said, and the Night Fury was indeed there; Hiccup could see the edge of a wing if he stretched far enough.

_'Where are we?' _he asked next, tugging experimentally on the metal strapping him down. Predictably, it didn't let up. _Worth a shot._

_'I don't know. The other woman, Mm - Ma-something - she was working for this guy, and they got Pepper.'_

_'Where's Pepper then?' _Hiccup couldn't see - unsurprisingly - or hear any signs of anyone else in the room. _'Is she somewhere else?'_

_'Yeah... the guy said something about a grand finale, then sent her off somewhere else. I think we're where M-something is.'_

Despite the situation now being far, far more dire, Hiccup couldn't help but smile. _'I've missed you, bud.' _

The sound of Toothless straining against his restraints reverberated around the room. With great effort, the Night Fury managed to get one wing to awkwardly nudge Hiccup's side. As hugs went, it was pretty bad, but it would have to suffice.

_'Yeah, I'd hug you,' _Hiccup grinned, _'but I'm a bit tied up at the moment.'_

Toothless groaned at the pun, causing Hiccup to cackle. The Night Fury sighed as his rider cracked up, and eventually ended up joining in with the infectious laughter.

The sound of an explosion brought them out of their amusement.

_'Was that...' _Hiccup trailed off, listening harder. Shouts were sounding in the corridor, none of which revealed anything other than that the explosion hadn't been intentional. Hopefully, the people who were breaking in weren't any worse than the terrorists currently holding them captive.

The door slammed open, and a man in a white suit stormed in. Hiccup remembered him from the videos - he was the twisted man who'd experimented his 'extremis' on unwitting amputees.

_"Oh good, you're still here." _the man said, slowing down his panicked run into an urgent jog. _"It'd be terribly awkward if I couldn't hold true to my promise to Tony."_

_'Who's this guy?' _Toothless asked, to which Hiccup shrugged. He didn't know what the 'promise' was, either, but he could safely assume that it wasn't a good thing.

More crashes sounded outside, along with some yelling. Hiccup recognised one of the shouts as Tony's, but he had no idea what the billionaire was saying.

_"I'm going to inject the extremis into your bloodstream." _the man explained, flicking a switch. Hiccup suddenly noticed the IV line next to him - how had he missed it? - and started struggling against his restraints. _"Now, there's no point in that." _the man chastised. He was approaching Hiccup from the right, brandishing a needle.

The shouts from outside were getting louder now, and Hiccup could clearly make out Tony's voice. He was shouting orders to someone else, telling them to "find him, before Killian gets him."

Oh, they were talking about him. Hiccup looked over to who he assumed was Killian, who was speeding up now that he too could hear Tony. He jabbed the needle into Hiccup's arm, then rushed for the exit.

_"Sorry to be so rude," _Killian paused in the doorway to speak, _"but I really must dash. Hope Mr Stark finds you in time."_

The glowing orange of extremis was dripping slowly down through the line towards Hiccup's arm. The room was left in a stunned silence for a second in Killian's absence, then:

_"Tony!" _Hiccup yelled at the top of his voice. The noise from outside the room paused. _"Tony!" _he tried again, _"I'm in here!"_

The cacophony resumed immediately, whoever was outside rushing in his direction. The orange liquid was halfway to his arm now, and Hiccup unsuccessfully tried to tug his arm away from it.

_"Hiccup?" _Tony, dressed in a banged-up Iron Man armour, barged through the door.

_"He's trying to put the extremis in me -" _Hiccup explained quickly, _"you've got to remove this thing!"_

Tony nodded, running over to the table Hiccup was attached to and yanking away the line. The orange glowing liquid splashed out as Tony pulled, leaving it to spill all over the floor.

_"He's okay, guys!" _Tony called out. _Who's he talking to?_

Hiccup's mental question was answered when a head popped round the door. Astrid wasted no time in getting into the room fully and rushing over.

"Are you okay?"

Thank the gods, there was finally someone to speak in _Norse _to! "Yeah... just need to get out of these things."

A few good tugs with the strength of the Iron Man armour solved that problem, and Hiccup was finally free.

"Is... uh... _is my armour here too?" _he asked awkwardly.

Tony nodded. _"Yeah. Figured you'd want your dragon more, though."_

_"Not an option." _Hiccup shook his head mournfully, gesturing to his legs - or leg, as he'd just realised - then to Toothless's broken tail - oh, _lack _of tailfin. Killian had removed both prosthetics, and they weren't anywhere in the room.

_"Ah. Wait a sec, I'll go get it."_

"So," Hiccup asked awkwardly, "what's the plan?"

"We've split up, us two are getting you, everyone else is getting Tony's friend."

"Rhodey?" Hiccup checked, to which Astrid nodded in recognition. "What's he doing here?"

Astrid shrugged, and Tony came back in, struggling to move the suit while simultaneously having it in a bear hug. He dumped it in front of Hiccup, who hobbled into it and smiled as the faceplate slid down and screens - blissfully in Norse - popped up to tell him the suit's current condition.

"Okay," he said, making full use of the return of the translator, "let's go."

* * *

It was Astrid who led the other two back to the rest of the group, who had by now found Rhodey and were outside the mansion.

"Well, that was a success." Clint said, nodding slightly to himself. It really was. They'd come to rescue two humans and a dragon, and here they were with two humans and a dragon. Perhaps not the same two humans they'd had in mind, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Okay guys," Tony was saying, and it was actually quite nice to hear his voice again, since he was technically supposed to be dead, "we need to go back to the main house. There's someone I'd like you to meet."

* * *

"Hi, Trevor, Trevor Slattery."

Hiccup had to admit, for all his faults, the man _could _perform well under pressure. All of the Avengers, a few dragons and some pretty angry Vikings, and Trevor was still trying to introduce himself.

Okay, maybe he was just really high, but still - impressive.

"Right, here's the deal: you tell me where Pepper is, and I stop him doing it." Tony explained, cutting off Trevor's introduction to Rhodey.

"Stop wha - ah! Ah, okay," Trevor grabbed his ear, "I don't know about any pepper, but I do know the plan."

"What plan?" Steve demanded.

"It's happening off the coast... something to do with a big boat - I could take you there! Whoa!" Everyone jumped as Trevor started cheering - he was watching a football game, and someone had just scored.

_Okay, slightly less impressive._

"Oh, and I know, this bit might have something to do with the vice president. Is that important?"

"A little bit!" Tony snapped. He sighed, moving away from Trevor and beckoning the others over. "Okay, we need a plan."

"What're we gonna do, go back to the tower?" Steve asked.

"No, we need something faster than that."

A chill ran through the group as they realised what Tony was implying; there wasn't even enough time to get back to New York - they really needed to get moving.

"Wait - Trevor," Tony turned back to the man, who'd now opened a canned drink and was fully engaged in watching the football, "didn't you say something about a lovely speedboat?"

* * *

**Anyone notice the oh-so subtle reference to a different fandom I put in there? Extra awesome points if you did.  
Hope this lived up to everyone's expectations...  
Well, there don't appear to be any questions to answer, and I've given this a vague once-over for spelling and stuff, so up it shall go!**


	11. We Get In, We Kick Ass (We Leave)

**A/n: back with another rubbishy, unchecked chapter. It'll probably have some glaring, totally embarrassing mistake (I have a tendency to fill blanks with capitals, for example the AIM guy who was, until ten minutes ago, named BALD GUY) which I really hope you'll just quickly point out if you notice, then I can correct it and we can all pretend it never happened.  
Anyway, here it is, sorry for the wait and all.**

* * *

Trevor - not the Mandarin, just a disappointing drug addict way in over his head - was happy to give out the location of his lovely speedboat. It seemed that, high as he was, he could still tell that losing it was better than dying by - well, numerous methods, at once, really. Chiefly, burning to death. Dragons were useful like that.

With dragons, it took even less long to reach the boat. Once on it, Tony immediately hooked the suits up to a battery, and Hiccup started trying to piece together a temporary tailfin for his downed dragon.

_"So,"_ Rhodey looked over the assorted superheroes, seemingly unimpressed, or at least unsurprised, at their involvement in the events. _"looks like it's going to take us a while to get to Pepper. But what are we going to do about the vice president?"_

Snotlout shrugged. "Why can't we just leave him?" he asked carelessly. "He looks really boring."

Rhodey looked irritated at the Viking's blasé views, but Hiccup realised what he was doing. The mood was lighter now, and there was a motivation to prove that both people could be saved.

_"We can essentially do that." _Tony agreed, just as casual. He was now holding out his 'borrowed' phone. _"Oh, look at that, I'm calling the vice president."_

_"Hello, yeah - this is Tony Stark." _Tony started nodding at whatever the vice president was saying, tapping his foot.

_"It's good to be back. Listen, we've got a bit of a problem." _Hiccup was fairly certain that Tony was now interrupting the man on the other end of the phone, though he couldn't hear what he was saying.

_"Yeah, that's not Rhodes. He's right here." _Tony glanced over at Rhodey.

_"It's true, sir." _Rhodey inputted. Tony gave him a quick thumbs up.

_"Ah, okay. Thanks." _Tony smiled at the vice president's response, then ended the call.

"Well, that was easy." Eret neatly summed up everyone's thoughts. "Now what?"

Clint shrugged. _"We go get Pepper, I guess. Then get drunk off our asses."_

_"None of the latter before we've finished the former though." _Natasha chided, grinning. At Clint's pout, she amended, _"Not _quite _off our asses. You've got to be able to see straight."_

Clint shrugged. A crisp hiss alerted Hiccup to the beer in his hand - when had that got there? More to the point, _where did it come from?_

As though he'd read Hiccup's mind - or, probably, Hiccup admitted to himself, his features (he'd never quite mastered the whole 'poker face' thing) - Clint gestured behind him, where a cooler sat.

_"You know the guy who owns this was, like, the highest person I've ever met, right?" _Tony checked, giving Clint's can an untrusting look. Clint shrugged again, and offered another can - again, Hiccup never saw his hand reach into the box - out to Tony. _"Hell no." _Tony batted Clint's hand away. _"I swear, if you get high, I'm videoing the whole thing."_

Clint smirked, then downed the drink. _"Yeah, whatever." _he said casually.

_"The Iron Patriot armour has flown off." _JARVIS chimed in, calling everyone's attention back to the two charging suits. _"It seems to be on course for the president's plane."_

_"Shit." _Tony cursed, flicking out his wrists to call the suit to himself. _"What happened to the vice president sorting everything out?"_

* * *

"Ah, Iron Patriot."

Savin gave a smirk, that went unseen under the armour. _Idiots. Didn't even check they've got the right guy in the suit. _He'd arrived a few minutes ago, finalised the plan with Killian, then made his official, much more visible, entrance. Now, he was stood at the bottom of the steps up to the plane, looking up at his target.

He didn't speak - that would give the game away too soon - but nobody questioned it, idiots as they were.

"With you here, I feel safer already."

Savin's position was nearly compromised; he couldn't help but snigger at the irony. He nodded, saluted, and followed his target on board.

* * *

Savin was in the air. On a plane, though with the commandeered armour being thrown off wouldn't exactly be a problem, with exactly the person he needed.

Best of all, there was no escaping him when they were in the air. Chuckling at the incompetency being shown - a chuckle which was hidden by the robotic sound of the armour moving, Savin moved himself into position to begin.

He smirked as he shoved the guards into their room, and opened the armour slightly so he could weld the doorknob into place. That done, he continued on into the meeting room.

"Everything alright, colonel?" the president asked, looking up and oh-so conveniently alerting Savin to his position. He took a nearby decoration - suitably sharp and pointed - and tossed it in his hand for a second before flicking it out, where it came to an abrupt stop in one of the men's chests.

After that, all hell broke loose.

Trigger happy guards jumped into action, firing ineffective - and they should've known it, having been given briefings on the armour's capabilities, albeit brief ones. Savin continued on, undeterred and unconcerned as he marched over to the president.

He had to shove a few people out of the way as they threw themselves at him, but it still took under a minute to walk over to the desk he knew the president was cowering behind, and rip it apart to give him clear access to the man.

"If you're gonna do it, do it!" Trying to sound brave but failing, the president growled at Savin.

Giving a smirk and an appropriate comeback - "that that's not how the Mandarin works" - Savin exited the suit fully and tossed the president into it.

No longer wearing the suit, all that remained was to find a parachute - or not; extremis really opened up one's options in last-minute plane escapes - and make the small drop of only a few thousand feet to the boat awaiting him. He took a parachute anyway, and one of the crew's uniforms. Never hurt to be prepared.

The sound of the people still trapped in the other room made him smile as he strolled down the plane, checking the emergency systems - useless oxygen masks and not much else - that his fight had prompted.

The whirring sound that he'd been getting used to hearing gave him a second's notice before the Iron Man armour came barrelling into him. It knocked him over, but did little else.

Savin stood up slowly, unable to see the suit. Looked like Mr Stark had expertly underestimated him, or was off trying to rescue the passengers. Either way was fine for Savin, and he stood up with a smirk.

Only to be knocked down again a moment later, another bodily shove from the metal man revealing that nether of Savin's expectations had been a reality.

"The president!" Stark demanded, holding Savin to the wall with one hand and firing up a blast in the other - one that both parties knew would only create superficial damage.

"He's not here." Savin revealed, firing up an attack of his own with his free hand. It was one that Tony failed to noticed, and Savin took pleasure in hearing the man audibly wince at the new burning pain in his wrist. "He's on his own private jet," he continued, producing a remote - his failsafe - from his other, now free, hand. "speaking of which, go fish."

Both men heard the explosion, and if that didn't cue Stark in on what was happening, the screams of the passengers, now holding on for dear life as the air pressure tried to suck them out, sure did.

Stark was now struggling to get out of his grasp, and Savin knew he'd won. Tony would go get the passengers, and leave him to make a neat escape -

Suddenly, there was a gaping hole where his chest should've been, and Savin wasn't so sure about his assumption of victory.

"Walk away from _that, _you son of a bitch." Stark muttered, stalking off and leaving Savin to sink back in shock as he started to feel his wound.

* * *

Astrid watched from a few feet away as another hole exploded into existence on the plane's side, bringing a plume of smoke up with it. She glanced over to Hiccup, wearing the suit and receiving a constant stream of information courtesy of JARVIS, and awaited his command.

She wasn't waiting for long. The smoke hadn't even begun clearing, and Hiccup was already giving the signal, nodding to Astrid before he announced it to the group: "We've got some people coming out of this one. Get ready to catch them!"

The group nodded, tense in anticipation despite how routine an operation it was. This had the potential to be harder than it had to be, Astrid realised: it all depended on the reaction the people falling had to the dragons. Hopefully it wasn't a particularly violent one; that could complicate matters slightly.

Lost in playing out the scenarios, Astrid nearly missed the first glimpse of a woman darting out of the smoke. She tapped Stormfly slightly with her foot, and the dragon dove after their first target.

Stormfly easily got the woman in her usual claw-grip method, then tossed her up for Astrid to steady.

_"Hey." _Astrid greeted, keeping an eye out for any other people falling - Eret had made his first catch, and the twins were darting after two people falling close to each other. _"You okay?"_

Still shocked, the woman nodded shakily, making an unsuccessful attempt to sweep her hair out of her face as the wind buffeted it.

"We've got another coming your way Astrid!" Hiccup's voice came through the comm.

_"Got it." _Astrid replied, still in English - it wouldn't do to have her passenger panicking because she was speaking in a strange language, on top of the shock of being on a dragon. Her eyes flitted upwards just in time to see her next passenger, a man this time, shoot past. Looking down after him, Astrid pointed downwards and called out _'Stormfly, fetch!'_

The woman behind her didn't get the chance to process the use of an unfamiliar tongue as she was suddenly plunged into a stomach-churning drop. She screamed, drowning out the sound of Astrid's laughter as they sped towards the next target.

Again, Stormfly's grab was accurate, and the man, who had previously been falling quite quickly through the air, came to a sudden halt, and then started moving _upwards. _Before he could fully recognise what was going on, he was sat down, clinging on to another of the plane passengers.

Her two passengers starting to chat amongst themselves, and Hiccup informing her that all those who had been ejected had been caught, Astrid tapped Stormfly again, and the dragon flew back up to the group.

Everyone was holding two passengers, save for Hiccup, who was giving an awkward piggy-back to one person.

"I'll take that guy, if you want." Eret offered, Skullcrusher swinging over to Hiccup's side to retrieve the man. Hiccup shrugged - as best he could, with a man clinging onto his back in terror - and shook the man off. One short scream later, Eret caught and positioned his new guest.

_"Have you got them all?" _Steve asked over the comm.

"Yeah." Fishlegs reported. "Thirteen of them. Where are they going?"

_"Just dump 'em in the ocean or something." _Clint suggested. _"Good thing you were there then, though." _he pointed out. _"Otherwise Tony would've had a hell of a time trying to get all those guys caught."_

_"Excuse me!" _Tony butted in, _"I would've done _excellently, _thanks very much!"_

"So, are we dumping them or what?" Snotlout asked, lazily examining his nails.

"I guess we are." Hiccup shrugged. "Take them down gently though." he warned, and Astrid didn't need to be able to see through the faceplate to know that he was glaring at the twins.

The twins knew too. Unfortunately for their passengers, neither did they care, so the six of them jetted down at the top speed Barf and Belch could manage, screams of both fear and joy being left in their wake.

_"Don't worry," _Astrid assured her own guests, _"we won't be going down that fast."_

Both nodded, still shaking - though by now more from the cold (Astrid took a moment to marvel at their inability to deal with the cool air) - and clung to her slightly more tightly, impossible as it seemed for their death-grip to get any tighter, as Stormfly started her controlled descent.

Two sets of armour followed the Vikings down. A slightly disappointing result, but two out of three was workable.

"Put them on the pavement somewhere." Hiccup suggested, turning back to the other suit. "So, what now?"

_"Just have to get back to the boat, and then we can -"_ Tony was cut off as a truck slammed quite suddenly into the armour's side, breaking it into pieces and leaving it scattered along the floor.

_"Damn." _Tony, safely back on the boat and controlling the armour with his mind - or not, anymore, since it had just been run over. _"How inconvenient."_

* * *

"Everything okay?"

Tony nodded in response to Rhodey's question. "Just got hit by a truck."

Hawkeye, who was now on his third beer - thankfully, his earlier bragging about having a high alcohol tolerance were standing firm - popped his head around the door. "That's _great!" _he laughed. "But how are you gonna put it together again?"

Rhodey nodded his agreement. "The suit was pretty much wrecked before. Is it useable?"

"Nope!" Tony popped the 'p', fully removing the headgear that had been connecting him to the suit.

"So how are you planning on saving Pepper?"

Tony answered by turning to the headset. "Hey, JARVIS?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Initiate 'House Party' Protocol."

* * *

Stan grumbled slightly as he shuffled a bit more rubble off to the side. In fairness, his job was quite a rubbish one: clearing up the debris of destroyed houses.

It _had _meant that the battle of New York had been, for him, a brilliant source of income, but it didn't take long for some other idiot to smash their mansion.

Specifically, Tony Stark. Stan actually didn't mind that aspect of the job - Stark had a plethora of insanely good tech stashed around, and quite a bit of it had survived the explosions. A few phones wouldn't go amiss, and could be sold for a lot of money, if one knew the right people. That and the fact that Stan didn't like Stark - and he'd really been asking for it that time, giving a _terrorist _his home address - made this job one of the best he'd had in a while.

The ground shifted slightly. It was a regular occurrence on properties like this, embedded in the side of a cliff and not really all that sturdy once the support beams had been destroyed, so Stan back off a bit and prepared to warn the rest of the crew to move away for a bit.

What wasn't normal was that it took just those few steps for the ground to stop moving.

More than slightly confused and a tad concerned, Stan stepped forwards again. The ground was moving. He looked down, and immediately saw the reason why.

_What the - _the floor was opening, rendering the last hour's work useless as all the debris he'd swept fell into the appearing hole.

Stan stepped forwards, peering into the drop created. It was too dark to see in properly, but with no way to gage the depth, he wasn't taking any chances with moving forwards for a closer look.

The opening to the hole stopped spinning, but there was still the sound of movement. It sounded just like the whatever-it-was that powered the Iron Man armour.

It _was _the Iron Man armour. Stan watched in astonishment as countless suits jetted out of the hole. The variety of them was staggering - not just the colours, either: some of them were massive, others clearly a lot faster. The last, and slowest, of the lot trundled out at a comparatively low speed probably still faster than any car Stan had ever driven, then there was silence.

* * *

Clint remained unimpressed. "What's a house party protocol?" he asked, giving the headset a prod as though it'd give him the answers.

"JARVIS just let loose all the suits."

"How many of them are there?" Steve asked, sounding mildly concerned, as Natasha provided her own scathing "Where're they going?"

"Lost count somewhere around thirty," Tony lied, "and... that's a good point, actually. Hey J, where've you sent these bad boys?"

There was a pause just long enough for Clint and Natasha to snicker over the use of 'bad boys', in which JARVIS checked the suits.

"They are currently on their way over here, sir."

Under the assumption that 'here' was the boat, Tony nodded. "Change course to the Mandarin hideout." Not that it was much of a hideout, really, if Trevor was to believed regarding the boats.

_"Where is 'here'?" _Hiccup's voice rang out over the comm.

JARVIS answered, speaking Norse. Tony frowned at the words - still gibberish to him, but hey, he'd been busy.

"He just said he'd give directions." Clint translated.

_Damn! _Tony cursed inwardly. _One-upped by bird brain... _Sure, he was at a bit of a disadvantage, but that was just ridiculous!

"Whatever." Tony replied - score one for totally not showing his irritation (what're you talking about _you're _irritated) - testily. "See you Vikingy guys in a bit, then."

* * *

Pepper jolted back into awareness to meet Killian in her face.

"Hello." the man - she'd known he was creepy, but somehow that wasn't making her feel any better about her current situation - said, speaking with a soft overconfidence that she just _couldn't wait _to see get beaten out of him.

"He's not going to help you." Pepper told him, because she didn't need telling why she was there - why go to the effort of convincing Tony Stark to join your cause when you can just get his damsel-in-distress girlfriend and make everything far easier for yourself? Pepper was no damsel in distress, not really, but a superhero she also was not, and she was willing to admit to herself that she probably didn't have a chance against Killian.

Again, the knowledge wasn't making her feel any better.

Killian laughed. "Actually, that isn't the only reason I have you here..." he said, getting closer to her face, "it's a little more embarrassing than that..."

"I'm here as your trophy." Pepper guessed, correctly, forcing herself to sound utterly unimpressed rather than completely creeped out.

Killian nodded. He looked about to say something else, but Pepper was saved from the rancid smell of his breath with the arrival of... Rhodey?

_Not Rhodey. _She amended, knowing the man too well to think him a traitor. This thought was confirmed not long after, as the suit opened and the president fell out.

It was nice to know that her importance as a hostage was on par with the leader of the United States himself. Nice, but utterly useless.

"Welcome aboard, Mr President."

* * *

"You ever heard of an elephant graveyard?" Killian hopped up the stairs with an uncanny energy, and the president followed him doggedly. It had been a long day, and he really, _really _wanted to go home. "Well, two years ago, the elephant in the room was this gal."

It was a shame that wasn't going to happen.

"This is the Roxxon Norco." the president recognised, taking a cautious glance over to his captor. He'd never suspected Killian to be the Mandarin - who would? - but now that he thought about it, the man was perfect terrorist material.

"And of course you'll remember that when she spilled a million gallons of crude, not one fat cat saw a day in court.

"What do you want from me?" the president asked. The United States may not negotiate with terrorists, but if it meant not being killed by a madman, he was willing to ignore that little detail.

"Oh, nothing." Killian said conversationally. "I just need an excuse to kill you. You see, I've got my own man waiting to slide into position once you're gone."

* * *

Ruffnut and Tuffnut were bored. They were stuck on a weird boat, they hadn't destroyed anything in _weeks, _and Hiccup was doing his serious-mode planning again.

"I'm bored." they both said simultaneously, sharing a moment of easily-impressed amusement as they noticed that fact.

"We know." Snotlout all but groaned, "You've said. _Ten times in the last minute."_

"Oh." Ruffnut shrugged. "Tuffnut started it."

As a small slap-fight broke out between the twins, the rest of the group returned to ignoring them. Over on the other side of the room, Astrid - who had been invited to the strategizing meeting, on account of the fact that she was able to create a plan more complex than 'kick ass' - noticed the bickering and wandered over to resolve the conflict.

"Any updates on how long Hiccup's gonna take?" Snotlout asked hopefully.

"Nope." Astrid sighed and sat down. "Sure, we need to have a plan and all, but does it really have to take this _long? _I'm starting to agree with your 'rush in and smash' strategy." she admitted.

Snotlout grinned. "That's 'cause it's the true Viking way!" he announced proudly, thumping his chest with one hand. "Me and Hookfang could've sorted this all out _hours _ago, couldn't we?"

Hookfang snorted good-naturedly, but otherwise ignored the comment.

Undeterred, Snotlout continued: "You know what, I'm gonna go tell 'em. This 'scary' guy's gonna have, like, taken over the world or whatever before we've even made our _plan!"_

Just as Snotlout drew himself up to march over, Tony clasped his hands together. _"Right!"_ he said with a tone of finality, _"let's get going, then."_

Not one to be put off by something as small as already having what he wanted, Snotlout cut in with a pointed "about time!"

"So," Snotlout said, this time louder, "what's the plan?"

_"We get in, we kick ass."_ Clint supplied. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then added:_ "We leave."_

"And that took you how long?" Tuffnut asked, "Three years?"

"It's somewhat simplified." Hiccup explained, cutting off five separate scathing remarks. "The longer version is like this..."

* * *

_'Why aren't we fighting?' _Toothless asked, as quietly as he could. It wasn't all that quiet, but since he was sat on the speedboat, and not trying to sneak into a terrorist hideout, it wasn't that much of a problem.

_'We're sitting this one out. Unless there's an emergency or something.' _Hiccup explained soothingly, rubbing at the scales on the dragon's head.

_'This is an emergency!' _Toothless moaned, _'I'm _bored! _And no one else has to sit out...'_

_'No one else has a broken tail.' _Hiccup explained, a little less patient. _'Or a "possible concussion". And anyway, Bruce is still here.'_

Toothless huffed. Bruce looked between the two, fascinated and confused, and Hiccup filled him in a bit.

"Big baby boo here's just whining." Bruce's expression cleared, and he nodded.

_'So what _does_ constitute as an emergency?' _Since Toothless wasn't technically complaining, Hiccup decided to humour him.

_'I don't know.' _he admitted. _'I think they just said that to placate us. Not like we could even do anything to help.'_

_'Well that's rubbish!' _Hiccup sighed at Toothless's dismissal. _'Nobody's gonna need us, we'll be bored out of our minds!'_

_'Better us useless than them actually needing help.' _Hiccup reasoned, unsuccessfully. When Toothless didn't reply, he added: _'It'll probably take them about twenty minutes, half an hour tops. If they're not back by then, we'll go help.'_

Toothless nodded, placated, and the two lapsed back into silence.

* * *

Over on the Mandarin's aquatic headquarters, the rest of the group were sneaking in.

Sneaking in, it should be noted, is nigh on impossible when being tailed by a group of brightly coloured dragons.

"Right, you ready?" Natasha glanced back at the Vikings, clasping her gun. The Vikings themselves had no such weaponry, though they were armed with the best axes and swords Berk had to offer. Natasha had proposed that they use a gun - taking a knife to a gun fight, however glorified, was never going to end well, after all - but they'd refused; their weapons, and dragons, would more than suffice. Since Clint also preferred his ancient weaponry, Natasha didn't protest.

"I found the president." Tony, slightly further ahead and now holding his gun up, thanks to some last-minute prompting from Rhodey, whispered harshly, stealing glances around the box he hid behind.

Natasha nodded to Clint, who responded in kind before moving over to take a look. He peered over, then turned back instantly.

"Bunch of guys near here." he reported. "Two in the immediate vicinity, haven't seen us yet. President's strung up, looks like this Mandarin guy has some serious dramatic flair.

Natasha nodded, not questioning his ability to take in all that with less than a second's view at the scene.

"I think he's gonna go up in flames." Tony expanded. "Viking funeral style - a burial on a burning ship at sea."

"How symbolic." Astrid remarked dryly.

_"What's symbolic?" _Hiccup interrupted them. _"And how long is this gonna take? I have a bored dragon over here."_

The Vikings winced. A bored dragon meant fire, and fire meant being caught. _"I'll send Stormfly over." _Astrid said, patting the dragon as she did.

_"Thanks." _Hiccup said gratefully.

Stormfly took off, then immediately landed. She crooned nervously.

Astrid realised what was wrong before she had to ask. Two men jumped down, holding their guns up and signalling to some men behind them who were standing by.

_"Toothless is gonna have to wait. We have a bit of a situation."_

* * *

**Yep, that all just happened. Cue a (probably) empty promise for the next chapter to take less long (it's the final battle, how could I lose motivation?), a quick reminder to review please and thank your input is loved and taken into account, and we're _done here!_**


	12. And Now, We Nap

**A/n: it's a Christmas miracle; it took me less than a month to create a new chapter! *Literal angels come down singing praises like wow.*  
And since it's Christmas (well, advent, but who isn't festive by then anyway? Not anyone _I _know, for sure *glares pointedly at Christmas song singing friend buttfaces*) you're all gonna give me the gift of many reviews? (Subtlety: check.)  
Anyhow, have yourselves a merry little (not so) final battle!**

* * *

Natasha looked up at the men surrounding them. Then she looked over at Clint. He was grinning as much as she was, bow already out, loaded, and pointed to someone further up.

"Must be a Tuesday." she joked, and took out her gun. Non-contact weapons were the way to go, if Tony's horror stories of people glowing from the heat they were producing, able to cut through metal with their bare hands, and men blowing up from a loss of control were to be believed.

"These guys are hard to kill." Tony warned, "Like, nothing short of a thousand-degree explosion where _they _are the bomb, kind of hard to kill." He too had his weapon ready, finger on the trigger of the gun - Natasha made a mental note to cover him; he clearly had little experience with the thing.

_"Question." _Snotlout raised his hand sarcastically, _"Can they regrow a _head?" He mimed chopping off said appendage with his hammer.

"Guess we're about to find out." Rhodey said, pointing with his gun at the closest person, one of the men Clint had seen previously, who was now charging towards them. The colonel shot him a few times, with little effect. The man jerked back with each hit, but was otherwise unimpeded.

"You know, I think we could probably use some backup." Tony said brightly.

"I thought we agreed not to bring the Hulk out?" Clint asked, letting an arrow loose that struck a woman in the chest. She smirked, and started pulling it out, then it exploded.

"Not _that _kind of backup." Tony said, as though it should've been obvious, then gave an impressed noise as the exploding arrow took out three of the guards instead of the intended one. "_That _kind of backup."

There was a momentary pause in the fight where everyone - AIM members included - turned around to gawp at the 'backup'.

"Is that..." Rhodey looked up, awed. "Are those..."

"Yup." Tony nodded proudly.

"Now _that's _a party." Clint grinned, elbowing Natasha. She rolled her eyes, then took out a few of the people who were still watching the skies with a few well-aimed headshots.

Their distraction was quite understandable. In the distance, becoming clearer every second, was an army of Iron Man armours. They weren't uniform, which was what made them so impressive. Even from a distance, it was easy to tell that they each had very distinctive designs, and, knowing Tony Stark, characteristics.

Natasha's gun shots jolted everyone back into action, and the group silently worked their way outwards, Clint, Natasha, Rhodey and Tony using their guns to take out targets further away, and the Vikings, having close-range weapons, taking off the heads (quite literally) of anyone who got too close.

"Cover me." Tony flicked his wrists out, and one of the suits sped up in his direction. Eret moved to Tony's side, chopping off someone's arm on the way and shuddering at the way there was no blood, only an unnatural glow as the limb started to reform.

"Hey JARVIS, get the suits to target anyone with an extremis heat signature." The suit assembled itself around Tony, and he blasted into a hovering position a few feet above the ground, using a spin-and-blast move to take out four people. "Right, I'm gonna find Pepper." he said, face plate moving into position as he blasted off.

* * *

Hiccup had, quite tactfully, not mentioned the new development of a fight breaking out to his dragon companion. He'd whispered it to Bruce, who had nodded, understanding, it seemed, the reasoning behind his silence.

Then, he'd got to work on a new tailfin. He wasn't letting Toothless see it - the dragon would surely convince him to go out into the battle if he did, and Hiccup was trying to actually _obey _orders, for once - which meant that progress was slow going.

There was also the small matter of having severely limited equipment. Limited as in he had hardly anything, and apparently no one had thought to bring equipment with them, so he was stuck with what was on the boat.

_'I'm bored.' _Toothless whined, tilting his head around to try and get a better look at what Hiccup was up to. _'What're you doing? I bet you're making a tailfin, and you're not gonna let me use it, 'cause you're a big meanie.'_

_'Being a meanie has nothing to do with it.' _Hiccup sighed.

_'So you _are _making a tailfin?' _Toothless perked up considerably, and Hiccup cursed at his slip-up. _'That was just a guess! Is it nearly finished?'_

_'No.' _Hiccup shook his head at the Night Fury's enthusiasm. _'So don't get too overexcited.'_

_'Is too!' _Toothless argued, dragging the 'o' out. He'd managed to drag the offending fin out, and Hiccup realised that he was right, to some extent.

It was certainly closer to being finished than he'd imagined, and he now had all the pieces he needed. In perhaps ten minutes, he could have a functioning tail put together.

_Knew this would happen. _Hiccup sighed. _'Fine. We can go once I've finished it. But only for a bit!'_

Toothless smirked, gave a celebratory cry, and started chasing his tail in circles.

* * *

"Sir? I have located Miss Potts."

Tony shook his head at JARVIS's unflappable formalness, kicking out as some _idiot -_ he was allowed to call them an idiot, seeing as they'd thought that getting extremis-ed was a good idea - jumped off a crane and latched onto his leg. "About time." he muttered, following the screen's new instructions.

He reached her location, one of the many metal containment units floating around in the air, slightly distressed to find that it had recently caved in.

"Pepper?"

After a pause, he heard a faint "Tony?" from the rubble, and allowed himself to breathe again.

He bent down, and could see her, intact but trapped under a steel beam. "Don't worry, I'll get you out." he promised, looking for a beam to lift. Amongst the sparking wires and out of shape metal, it was hard to tell what moving each part would do. He tried lifting one at random, but Pepper's pained moan was a good indication that, whatever he was doing, he should stop.

"Sorry, sorry," he apologised quickly, setting the rubble back down. "just wait there, I'll get you out." he repeated, stepping back to get a better look at the problem.

An _arm _burst through the floor, grabbing him with such vigour that it dragged him down onto the floor.

"Wh-" Suddenly, Killian was coming up through a smouldering hole, arms glowing and hair tousled in a way that reminded Tony scarily of the old Killian, the weirdo he'd brushed off years ago without a second thought. "Oh."

_This son of a -_

Before Tony had the chance to get up, Killian was on him, hands still glowing and dangerously close to the suit. He was grinning madly, eyes wide with a spark of obsession that was truly terrifying.

"If you wanted to get on top of that badly, all you had to do was ask."

Not that Tony was going to let anyone know that.

Killian grinned instead of responding, and brought a finger to Tony's chest. "Ooh, is that hot in there?" he taunted, pressing the finger down slowly and sending a creeping heat into the armour that transitioned from pleasant to stifling at an alarming rate.

"You stuck? Feelin' a little stuck?"

Tony struggled to crane his neck to get a better view of Pepper. Oddly enough, she was no longer staring desperately at him, but looking off into another, seemingly random, space, recognition spreading across her features. It was enough to distract him from the now burning pain in his chest, and he was able to get up a bit more to see what she was staring at.

"Like a little turtle?" Killian continued, heard only as background noise.

_Oh thank god. _It was Hiccup, come to save him with uncanny timing. The Viking was staring at Tony now, clearly debating whether or not to jump in.

Tony shook his head slightly, the movement small enough that Killian would hopefully see it as jerking back in pain, and directed his eyes pointedly in Pepper's direction.

After a few quite violent eye movements on Tony's behalf, Hiccup got the message, and followed his gaze. Tony knew he'd found Pepper, and, if he could distract Killian for a little longer - he was doing quite a good job of it already, really - she'd be safe.

"Stuck in his little turtle suit?" It was clear that Killian was enjoying his moment of victory, perhaps a bit too much.

"Yeah, whatever." Tony said flippantly; Pepper was safe - he had seen Hiccup and Toothless leave just a few seconds ago, yet Killian still hadn't noticed this - he could afford to be sarcastic now. "That's nice and all, but maybe you shouldn't be gloating your evil plans before they've been hatched, eh?"

Killian growled at that, and heated up his hand, ready to plunge it into Tony's chest and kill him. It was a nice plan; shame Tony wasn't all that into letting it happen.

The arm of the suit was outfitted with a blade, just for moments like this. When Killian swung his arm down, Tony was ready, and the razor edge in between Killian and Tony was enough to chop the former's arm off.

"I'd love to stay, but I've gotta dash." Tony fired a quick shot to Killian's face, and ejected himself from the sparking suit.

* * *

Back with those who were busy trying to kill as many AIM members as possible (Hiccup insisted it wasn't a competition, having grown a sort of sixth sense about the Viking's competitive streak and being able to use the comms), things were going pretty well.

"That makes fifteen!" Snotlout grinned, swinging his hammer down and crushing someone else's head.

"Fifteen _what?" _Tuffnut, now sat on Barf's neck, asked. "Those guys get up after you kill them!"

"Nuh-uh!" Snotlout protested, "Hookfang takes 'em out after!"

Tuffnut shrugged, then laughed as his dragon filled someone with gas. The AIM member's fire power was used against them, and they exploded.

_"Who's gonna get the President?" _Rhodey asked. He raised a valid point; the man was still strung up, though it appeared that nobody was really paying attention to him anymore. _"He's in my suit; I'm gonna need that."_

When nobody volunteered, Fishlegs shrugged. _"Meatlug can take you up."_ he offered, leaning the dragon in Rhodey's direction.

_"Thanks." _Rhodey said as he jumped up, using his new vantage point to shoot another few people - it still had no real effect, but it made him feel a bit better about the situation.

Meatlug set off at a steady pace over to the President, who was still strung up, left quite forgotten in the heat of the battle.

"Watch out!"

The shout, coming from Steve just a moment too late, managed to alert the two riders to the mad AIM member flying at them - in was an uncontrolled descent, so Fishlegs suspected that the star-spangled man with a plan was somewhat to blame for their sudden arrival - and not much else. The woman, there was enough time to see her clearly, but not enough to dodge, collided with the Gronkle at enough speed to knock Rhodey off.

The colonel began his own uncontrolled descent, and managed to land on a crate being lifted by one of the many cranes. _"I'll make my own way from here."_ he told the Viking, who was just managing to keep his grip on his dragon.

Fishlegs nodded, and returned to the larger group for some more ass-kicking.

* * *

"Hold on Mr President. I'm coming to get you." Rhodey panted, hoping that his message had got through despite his breathlessness, and his shout had been loud enough to attract the President's attention inside the Iron Patriot armour.

The sound of pounding against metal alerted Rhodey to the presence of more AIM members, at the end of the walkway he was on but approaching at what was soon to be an alarming rate. Whatever he was going to do, he needed to do it quickly.

With a few more half-hearted words of comfort, said in the President's general direction but almost entirely for his own benefit, Rhodey grabbed the nearest rope and used it as a makeshift zip line and convenient route to the President, jumping off the edge and zipping down just before the man before him managed to get a grasp on his shirt. After a short trip down, he stopped on the edge of one of the crates, planning to use it as a stepping stone.

There were two more AIM members on the crate, both unarmed but clearly deadly, and wearing oddly militaristic clothing. Rhodey shot them, despite knowing that it would have little effect, and used the precious few seconds it bought him to come up with a plan.

Whatever plan he had been concocting never came into fruition, as the man and woman charged him, already recovered. The man reached him first, and Rhodey ducked away while shooting to avoid being sliced in two by the super-heated hands.

Instead of Rhodey being sliced, the chain connecting the crate to the crane lifted it ended up severed. Already on the edge, Rhodey dropped over at the unexpected turbulance and was left clinging on for dear life with one hand, and holdng up his gun with the other.

Well, he could work with it.

"Bye bye!" he said to the two approaching him - Tony wasn't the only one capable of snarky one-liners - and shot the other chain. The crate swung, leaving Rhodey as the only one on it since he already had a hold on it. The two AIM members screeched as they fell. In a wonderful feat of acrobatics - also known as the not-so-neat transfer from holding onto one piece of metal to another - Rhodey reached the President, and his suit.

Below him, the crate fell and smashed against the floor, creating another explosion to add to the heat - it was a good thing he hadn't brought a coat; he'd have melted already (and wasn't that an odd thing to be concentrating on in a life-or-death situation. Rhodey blamed Tony).

"Brace yourself!" he warned, repositioning the President's wrist and triggering a blast from the palm that severed yet another chain - everything was made of metal and Rhodey hated it for its conductivity - and sent both coloneland President swinging just out of the way of the ascending cloud of flame.

"You look great in that suit," Rhodey joked, coming easily out of a roll as he landed - thankfully the President had also made it across without injuries - "but I'm gonna have to take it off you."

* * *

"Where's Pepper?"

Tony startled and turned round, surprised to see that Killian had decided to sneak up on him and then not use the element of surprise to get a cheap shot in. _Meh - his loss._

"Gone." he answered shortly, scouring the ground for any sign of the others because the floor was _on fire, _damn it, and he needed to know that it was fire that was working to their advantage, not killing them.

"Shame." Killian didn't exactly give the reaction Tony had expected; he hadn't risen to the gloat - though it was, admittedly, a bit of a distracted one - and had instead opted to continue sounding high and mighty. "I would've caught her."

_Ah. _So, Killian thought she was dead? Well, Tony wasn't about to correct him. Now, if Pepper actually _was _dead, that comment would've been very, _very _annoying. And a tad bit cruel, and he would've responded by charging.

Killian was probably expecting him to charge.

Well, Tony wasn't one to disappoint.

The two men rushed at each other. Killian went for a leap, fist raised and ready to collide. Unfortunately there wasn't anything for him to collide _with, _as Tony slid under him and carried on running. There was a suit ready and waiting on the other side, which Tony happily let form around him.

He turned back round, faceplate going down just in time to block one of Killian's punches, and started dodging Killian's blows.

After blocking a few hits with the help of JARVIS - and just when had an AI become better than him at fighting, anyway? - he managed to grab Killian's back - on his own volition, thank you very much - and shove him into the railing. The man - the Man_darin, _actually - managed to shake Tony off, and their fists collided as they both went in for a punch at the same time.

Tony didn't think it was fair, that his fist ached with the rebound. He was wearing a _metal suit, _for god's sake.

Killian recovered faster, and rushed in for a bodily shove that sent Tony through the bars and onto a lower down platform. Killian looked down on him, preparing to jump down himself.

A soft click in his ear signified communications opening again.

_Wow. What_ great_ timing._

* * *

"Where are you now, Tony?"

"Uh... a bunch of places. Kinda getting my ass handed to me over here, but it's cool. I'm cool. Cooler than this guy, anyway."

Hiccup rolled his eyes at the response. "Well, Pepper's with Bruce. Dropped her off a bit ago. And the President; Rhodey got him out."

There was a bit of a pause, and a few grunts, before Tony responded. "Okay. You still with Jolly Green?"

"No; Toothless was too excited." Hiccup rubbed the back of his neck. "You sure we can't help?"

"Yeah." Hiccup frowned, sceptical,as the sound of metal clunking together came through the com. "Seriously, I'll be fine."

Hiccup shrugged; he wouldn't be getting anything more out of the billionaire. "Well, okay." Just like that, communication ceased, and Hiccup's mind turned back to his own battle. He had found the rest of the Vikings and the Avengers, with little effort: all one had to do was follow the trail of destruction. A competition was in full swing, and Hiccup was too busy winning it to make anyone stop.

"Ha!" Hiccup fist-pumped as Toothless's blue plasma blast took out another person, then ducked behind a conveniently placed Night Fury wing as the resulting explosion backfired to send debris in flaming chunks of metal raining down on him. "How many's that now? Twenty?"

_'Twenty five at least.' _Toothless boasted smugly, sending a blast out into the air just because he could, and enjoying his alpha-power-enhanced fireworks as it collided with one of the Iron Man armours.

"You have an unfair advantage." Snotlout grumbled, now coming in third - Clint and Natasha had created a team, since they had no dragon power to help them, and were doing surprisingly well without one.

Hiccup shrugged, then turned his attention back to the oncoming AIM army for a moment. "Why are we trying to kill these guys, anyway?" he questioned as he did just that. "Well... I guess we can't tie them up..." he started answering his own question, still pointing for Toothless to blast away at the people surrounding them. "And I guess if they insist on fighting..."

"We might as well kick their asses!" Snotlout finished proudly, punctuating it with a fist pump and explosion of fire on Hookfang's behalf.

"Not exactly how I was gonna finish, but hey." Hiccup shrugged again. "Well, I got news from Tony."

"Yeah?" Steve looked up from where he was bashing someone over the head with his shield. He wasn't involved in the competition, instead opting to be 'an even bigger spoilsport than Haddock over there usually is' (Hiccup didn't agree with Snotlout's assessment of himself, but acknowledged that it summed up Steve quite nicely currently.

"He's fighting Killian. I think we're gonna be done in a few minutes here, if his fight goes well."

"Ah. Are you going off to help?"

"Tony said he didn't need any."

Steve gave Hiccup a _look._

"...Fair point. See you guys later!"

* * *

Tony ejected himself from the suit just in time to avoid another flying punch, and landed in another suit lying in wait for him a few feet down. He'd _known _that having so many suits was going to come in handy some day. He jetted back up, slamming into Killian and bringing him a few levels upwards and _why isn't he wearing a shirt?_

Because of course, that was the main concern here.

Deciding that he didn't much care about Killian's latest decision to show off his tats, Tony went in for a punch.

Killian dodged it, returned it with one of his own. With a grunt, Tony threw another hit, that collided and sent Killian back into a bit of machinery.

Tony started charging up a blast, but Killian got in first and slid under him, somehow dragging him over the edge. If not for the fact that, hey, his suit could _fly, _Tony would've probably fallen and died.

Reassuring.

Tony threw himself back into the fight, using the jets under his feet to propel his knee forwards with considerable force right into Killian's chest. It was cathartic, really, and Tony went in for a few more propelled hits - one a backhand to the face, another slammed down into his back.

It wasn't until Tony went to kick him and was a bit too slow about it that Killian managed to even things out again. He grabbed the suit leg and prepared a molten hand, which Tony neatly dodged by ejecting his leg from the suit. Killian grabbed him up, and held him out over the edge.

"Well here we are, on the roof."

Tony ejected himself entirely from the suit, just in time. It was mercilessly sliced in half by one of Killian's freakishly hot hands, and left to drop down with Tony, sparking uselessly.

Killian stood and watched both suit and man fall, yet again preparing to jump down onto Tony. He didn't, instead looking upwards into the distance as he panted.

_What's he - _"Mark 42 inbound." JARVIS informed him.

The AI was right; the newest suit was visible now, flying a little off-kilter but still intact, and still - Tony hoped - battle ready. "Well, I'll be damned..." he muttered, "the prodigal son returns."

He rolled onto his knees and stretched an arm out backwards, ready to accept the suit and take Killian down.

It was unfortunate, therefore, that the suit's erratic flight pattern led it to crash into the edge of the metal platform. It fell apart, and dropped to the floor with a disappointing clang.

"Whatever." Tony brought his hand back, looking away from Killian's smirk.

"You really didn't deserve it, Tony."

_Really? We're doing this now? _Tony looked off into the distance questioningly, then turned his attention back to the - completely exasperating - man above him. "True." he conceded. "But neither do you."

Killian jumped down to grab him, and Tony directed the disassembled suit over in his direction. Killian struggled against the suit as it started forming around him, unable to escape or chop it up when he was touching the metal already.

The last Tony saw of Killian's expression was one of complete rage, before the faceplate covered it and the man was totally encased in the suit.

"Hey J? Do me a favour and blow mark 42." Tony turned around, silently cursing the fact that no one was around to see his totally awesome and badass no-shits-given walk away from the impending explosion.

And then he instantly retracted that curse as he pegged it out of there, no longer looking quite as cool as he ran aimlessly over to the edge of the platform.

"Hey Hiccup, could kinda use some of that backup right now..." Tony said, spotting a support beam and jumping onto it to slide to safety.

Behind him, the suit exploded, with the unfortunate side effect of collapsing the support and forcing the beam Tony was _still using, damn it, _to start falling downwards.

So much for that plan.

All that was left was to leap off the beam, and hope for the best.

"Gonna need a suit!" he yelled to JARVIS, opening out his arms and hoping that he didn't end up belly flopping the floor.

A blur of black came out of nowhere to tackle him, and Tony felt the scales uncomfortably rubbing against his skin before he realised consciously what had just happened.

"Oh thank -"

"Don't be thanking anyone yet!" Hiccup warned, looking back over his shoulder at the explosion. He reached out a hand to help Tony up, and the two turned their attention to the flight, rather than the inferno building up behind them.

"Fly us out of here!" Tony snapped, all too aware of the rate the fire was spreading at. Hiccup gestured backwards as a response, and Tony realised for the first time - though it had technically only taken him a few seconds, so the lack of observation wasn't really going to be mourned - that the makeshift prophetic tailfin was not only barely the right shape, but also _on fire._

_Great._

So, it was an uncontrolled landing that they had to go for, and Tony couldn't help but slightly resent the Night Fury's weight as it - he - rolled over Tony several times in their bouncing **stutter **to a stop.

At least the dragon didn't _land _on him, once they finally stopped, which was more than he could say for Hiccup.

Deciding that the Viking was probably able to withstand his own dragon's weight, Tony fought his way upright in order to attend to more pressing matters, like: _was Killian really dead?_

"Hey, guys." Tony pressed a hand to his ear, just to check that _yes, the earpiece was still in, _"That explosion there? Kinda my fault. A bit. Uh, if you could make your way over, bit of help wouldn't go amiss."

Because it wasn't a certainty that Killian was dead - persistent bastard as he was - and Tony was officially out of tricks.

It was a good thing that he called in backup, as Tony saw movement within the flames. Slowly but surely, Killian staggered out of the wreckage, covered in burns in various stages of healing over. His face was barely recognisable, completely glowing and half singed off.

Tony fell back into Toothless, who was up and _glowing blue _and growling at Killian. Either Killian hadn't noticed the dragon or he didn't care, because he continued stubling forwards, bringing up a glowing arm to point at Tony accusingly.

"I... am..."

Tony gasped as an axe came out of nowhere, lopping off Killian's head and cutting off the end of his sentence.

"Dead." Astrid, thrower of said axe, said, with a tone of finality.

"_Now _can I start thanking people?" Tony asked, turning back to the Viking who was still fighting his way out from under a Night Fury's protective wing.

"Go for it." Hiccup gestured out to the assembled Avengers and Vikings.

"You know what? Nah." Tony relaxed back against Toothless, patting the dragon appreciatively. "It was all us two. If they want all the thanks, they can go do most of the legwork themselves."

"Nice to know we're so appreciated." Steve snarked lightly, then patted Tony on the shoulder. "Well, what now?"

"Now?" Tony looked back at the dragon. He could see how Hiccup thought the Night Fury was so comfortable to sleep on. "Now, we _nap."_

Tony decided to get a head start on that idea, and collapsed back onto Toothless without another word.

* * *

**And thus marks the tragic end of the Iron Man 3 section of our tour.  
(Also hey would anyone be interested in an _exciting and completely rubbish _prize of _more fanfic _for being the hundredth reviewer?)**


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